Anti terror laws ruled illegal..

[danielf]

Originally Posted by martyh

you're not going to start acting all weird on buses are you just to test that theory

I might be wrong here, but Police do have the right to stop and search someone, provided they have a reasonable suspicion a person has committed a crime or intends to commit a crime. Presumably they would need to name the reasons for their suspicion should something come to trial.

The problem with this law is that it allows them to search someone even without suspicion. The law is meant to apply to specific areas and specific times, but in practice is applied everywhere at all times. Which is wrong...

Originally Posted by danielf

I might be wrong here, but Police do have the right to stop and search someone, provided they have a reasonable suspicion a person has committed a crime or intends to commit a crime. Presumably they would need to name the reasons for their suspicion should something come to trial.

The problem with this law is that it allows them to search someone even without suspicion. The law is meant to apply to specific areas and specific times, but in practice is applied everywhere at all times. Which is wrong...

thats what i said

Originally Posted by nomadking

So, no investigation of a crime can ever take place because everyone is assumed innocent? You couldn't even question somebody because that would assume that they could be guilty.
Is there no murderer until after somebody has been convicted of that murder?

You appear to be misunderstanding what I said - it is one of the basic tenets of UK law that guilt has to be proved, not innocence;

The only way this can be validated is by investigation of the crime, collation of evidence, and presentation of this evidence to CPS (to see if they agree there is enough evidence to support a prosecution), and then a trial to review and judge the evidence, at which point guilt or innocence is decided. Up till then, the accused are suspects, nothing more.

But I am sure you knew that.

Don't search them just shoot them, they can't complain then can they??

[Pauls9]

Originally Posted by Earl of Bronze

Just because a small proportion of the population carries a blade, or an illegally held firearm, or distributes illegal drugs, does not mean *I* should be treated like a potential criminal. If the police ever decide to "give me a tug" under Nu-Liebours anti-freedom laws I shall refuse to comply. If that means I end up in the cells, so be it....

Our lad spent a year after graduating living in London and visiting towns and universities around the country selling magazine subscriptions. This often involved waiting for the rest of his team at a railway station before travelling. Since he is half south American, to an untrained eye he can look somewhat middle eastern, especially in the summer. He was stopped, questioned and searched on a number of occasions, all without the police finding any evidence, since there was none in the first place. Can you imagine the embarrassment in front of crowds of travellers? The one occasion he had had enough and started asking why they were doing this, he ended up in the cells, was strip searched, fined for not co-operating and now has this record against him. It says something for his sense of right and wrong that he didn't go down the path of "radicalisation".

Don't search them just shoot them, they can't complain then can they??

Don't forget, "they" could easily be you and me, if we had a different skin colour.

Yes, stop and search and the terrorism act are there with good intentions, but the police do seem to overstep the limits too often.

I would still like to know just how many terrorists have been caught by stop and search?

[Saaf_laandon_mo]

Originally Posted by Nidge

Don't search them just shoot them, they can't complain then can they??

That's already happened - just as the Mendez family.

Originally Posted by Maggy J

I would still like to know just how many terrorists have been caught by stop and search?

none that i've heard of ,but that doesn't mean we don't need it at certain times like high alert but definately not all the time

[Tarantella]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

I would still like to know just how many terrorists have been caught by stop and search?

That would require more paperwork.

[BBKing]

Originally Posted by Derek L

a foreign establishment

I've said it about a trillion times, but the ECHR is not a foreign establishment, it was set up by the British (specifically Sir Winston Churchill and Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe*) to teach the rest of Europe basic lessons about how to avoid a police state. For some reason in 1945, with fascists in Spain and Portugal and Stalinists running the Eastern Block and threatening power in France, Italy and Greece this seemed like quite a pressing issue. The rule remains: if your government repeatedly gets caught by the court doing something it shouldn't, get a new government.

It's also nothing to do with the European Union, which it predates by some years - the EU mandates signing up to the ECHR as a condition of membership, but not the other way round - the Court involves far more countries, under the auspices of the Council of Europe.

* A Conservative Home Secretary, Nuremburg war crimes prosecutor and the man who sent Derek Bentley to the gallows. The girly wet liberal.

[Derek]

Originally Posted by BBKing

*SNIP*

No idea who Derek L is so I'll reply on his behalf.

The history of the court will not be of interest to the majority of people out there. They'll see law passed by the UK parliament being torn up by, to their minds, a foreign establishment, and I'm pretty sure in the next 3-4 months that will be dragged up by various political parties to score points.

[danielf]

Originally Posted by Derek S

No idea who Derek L is so I'll reply on his behalf.

The history of the court will not be of interest to the majority of people out there. They'll see law passed by the UK parliament being torn up by, to their minds, a foreign establishment, and I'm pretty sure in the next 3-4 months that will be dragged up by various political parties to score points.

There appears to be a consensus on this board that the court, foreign or not, has reached the right conclusion though.

Originally Posted by BBKing

I've said it about a trillion times, but the ECHR is not a foreign establishment, it was set up by the British (specifically Sir Winston Churchill and Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe*) to teach the rest of Europe basic lessons about how to avoid a police state. For some reason in 1945, with fascists in Spain and Portugal and Stalinists running the Eastern Block and threatening power in France, Italy and Greece this seemed like quite a pressing issue. The rule remains: if your government repeatedly gets caught by the court doing something it shouldn't, get a new government.

It's also nothing to do with the European Union, which it predates by some years - the EU mandates signing up to the ECHR as a condition of membership, but not the other way round - the Court involves far more countries, under the auspices of the Council of Europe.

* A Conservative Home Secretary, Nuremburg war crimes prosecutor and the man who sent Derek Bentley to the gallows. The girly wet liberal.

Quoted without snippage in the vain hope that somebody might actually read and take note of it. Although, sadly, Derek is probably right, Labour and Tory alike will most probably use it to score cheap political points in the months ahead.

It worries me that British laws are now routinely over-ruled by an institution that our grandparents set up in order to share what they considered to be British values to the rest of Europe.

[Derek]

Originally Posted by danielf

There appears to be a consensus on this board that the court, foreign or not, has reached the right conclusion though.

They probably have, however if the Government passed a law allowing small children to be used for target practise which was later ruled illegal a significant chunk of the population would be unhappy at being told by 'Europe' they can no longer do it.

Originally Posted by danielf

There appears to be a consensus on this board that the court, foreign or not, has reached the right conclusion though.

have the court said the law is illegal or the way it's being used ?