UK politics

Tomorrow (March 1), Parliament will vote on whether to renew the government’s control order regime, a form of house arrest for alleged terrorist suspects, who are held without charge or trial on the basis of secret evidence. This lamentable system was established in haste in 2005, when the Law Lords ruled that the government’s previous [...]

On February 10, the Court of Appeal brought to an end an 18-month campaign by foreign secretary David Miliband to prevent the publication of a short summary, prepared by two High Court judges, explaining how US agents had subjected the British resident Binyam Mohamed to what was described as “at the very least cruel, inhuman [...]

On Friday, it emerged in a UK court that the Metropolitan Police is investigating allegations that MI5 was complicit in the torture, in US custody in Afghanistan, of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident still held at Guantánamo. In the High Court, Richard Hermer QC, counsel for Aamer, told Mr. Justice Sullivan that Met officers [...]

Since last June, when, in the wake of a significant ruling in the European Court of Human Rights, the Law Lords ruled that imposing control orders breaches Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to a fair trial, the system established in haste and paranoia in early 2005 has [...]

On February 3, 2010, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, comprising members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, met to hear oral evidence on “Counter-Terrorism Policy and Human Rights: Control Orders” from two solicitors representing control order detainees, and three Special Advocates representing the detainees during discussions of secret evidence in [...]

On February 3, 2010, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, comprising members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, met to hear oral evidence on “Counter-Terrorism Policy and Human Rights: Control Orders” from two solicitors representing control order detainees, and three Special Advocates representing the detainees during discussions of secret evidence in [...]

Three senior UK judges on Wednesday ordered the British government to publicly disclose previously classified information that reveals how Binyam Mohamed, a British resident, was tortured by the CIA while in Pakistani custody in April and May 2002.
In one short session, the Court of Appeal brought an end to a transatlantic game of cat and [...]

So will the Chilcot Inquiry into the illegal invasion of Iraq actually do anything when it finally reaches its conclusions? It seems unlikely. Over the last two months, we have had some fascinating moments: on November 26, for example, when Sir Christopher Meyer, Britain’s ambassador to the US, delivered testimony which, as I explained at [...]

The news that Ziyad Ali Hashem, a control order detainee in the UK (previously identified only as DD) has had his control order lifted elicits two particular responses from those who have been aware of his case since he was first deprived of his liberty in November 2005: firstly, relief that his ordeal is at [...]

For the Guardian’s Comment is free, “Compensation for control orders is a distraction” is an article I wrote examining yesterday’s High Court ruling, in which a judge quashed two control orders — a form of house arrest in operation since March 2005 — and indicated that the men affected, who had been subjected to the [...]