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The Destruction of Civil Liberties by the UK government: This Citizen's Perception.
Despite the title of the page, I'm up to '25 down' - added at the foot of the page (30 June, 2008).
There has not been a universal removal in the UK of any one civil liberty.
Nor, probably, has any one human being lost all of his or her civil liberties to our police or government - although the friends and family of an innocent man shot dead by police on the Underground (through official incompetence and without warning) might be amongst those who would disagree.
But each of the following, inter alia, has been reduced for some people, for at least some of the time:
Habeas Corpus, The Presumption of Innocence, The right to a Fair Trial, The right to Silence, Double Jeopardy.
1. The right not to be arrested without being informed of charges.
2. The right not to be presumed guilty without fair trial. Now, for certain offences, the prosecution does not have to prove guilt - the defence has to prove innocence.
3. Freedom from Detention Without Trial. We already have the longest such detentions without charge in Europe, and the government is set to extend them further.
4. The Right to Remain Silent, without prejudice, when questioned by police or other officials.
5. The right of an accused person to a Trial by a Jury of his or her peers.
6. Freedom from Double Jeopardy - The assumption that the government will not, through appeals, be entitled to have endless bites at the courtroom cherry - nor to use the courtroom as a means of 'fishing' for information.
Torture.
7. Freedom from Torture.
Postal Voting.
8. The Right to Vote in Secret. Worth clarifying this one: the polling booth guarantees privacy; if need be, a person under pressure can lie about how they've voted: the moment that voting moves to the home, there is no escape for, say, a bullied wife. Never mind all the mass-voting cons that have been going on.
Justice for the Victim - and for the Innocent Accused.
9. The Right of Society and of the Victim to a Trial. The existence of the Crown Prosecution Service, in prejudging outcomes of jury trials and blocking many, sometimes itself abrogates the right to justice. The increasing tendency of the CPS and indeed of the police, to decide 'not to proceed' or to 'no crime' an incident has particularly hurt, for example, rape victims. Society has as much interest in a fair trial as does the accused.
10. The Right of the Accused to Clear His/Her Name.
The increasing restriction of offences allowed before a jury affects victim, offender and innocent accused - and affects social fabric as well. Interesting that the government attacks jury trial from both ends - many crimes (earning up to a year in prison) are 'too minor' to deserve a full trial, but at the same time many serious crimes (eg fraud) are 'too complex'. White man speak with forked tongue.
Surveillance.
11. Freedom of Privacy - whether by direct surveillance (do we really need to be 20x more surveilled than other countries?), by data surveillance (OysterCard, Traffic, internet use, etc. etc.), by communications surveillance (now allowed to about 800 different agencies, including local council or Health and Safety, of Emails or mobile phone use), by access to your home (running at about 500 agencies, many of whom do not even need the warrant required of the police). If you are one of those many who say you have nothing to hide because you have done nothing wrong then you can cast the first stone at the woman taken in adultery - but then I doubt if Jesus would risk making that offer in modern Britain.
Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Association.
12. Freedom of Speech. Not being able to speak at New Labour's conference is one thing: terror laws being used to stop you are another.
13. Freedom of Association. More and more people are being told who they can or can't talk to, or be with: or are being regarded as criminal only because of association with the 'wrong' people. Additionally, the government can outlaw organisations without proving wrongdoing; membership of such an organisation is thereby criminalised as is organising protests in support of it.
14. Freedom to Demonstrate and to lobby elected MPs. Can you say what you want to, near Parliament? They say it's getting more difficult to approach your MP there, too.
ASBOs
If it weren't for the human nature of police, councils, etc, these would be a good way of doing exactly what they were designed for; and often they are used properly even if (if the tabloids are correct) without much effect. But:
15. Freedom from Arbitrary Constraint of Liberty. An ASBO...What a marvellous way to bang someone up without the boring necessity of waiting for them to commit a crime... or to stop someone from doing something that isn't even a crime because someone else doesn't like them and can make a fuss.
And my point is?
I repeat: I do not claim that any of theses liberties have disappeared altogether. What I am saying is that they have all seen new limits imposed, or suffered a chipping away at the edges; or people at the margins of society or of luck or of conventionality have seen their safeguards melt away.
I put this to you:
A government that was dedicated to our liberties and rights would do all it could NOT to see those liberties and rights eroded.
That cannot be said of the government in general over the past generation nor sadly of Blair's New Labour in particular.
Here's a question: If you are arrested but not charged, how do you know for certain that your arrest is actually legal?
Ah. You trust the police, of course.
I haven't even started on ID cards, databasing, restrictions on strikes and other union activity, control of the press (D-notices) or too close an association with proprietors, or thought crime (I have now heard thoughts about sex with a 15 year old or thoughts of sympathy with any political aims of Al-Quaeda described as illegal).
(!5 items which I've thought of off the cuff....)
16. To which I add, ironically in the week of 11 November, barriers to our Freedom of Movement. (See 'An Icy Sense of Despair' - Classified - Surveillance - 15 November 2007)
A final thought, for now:
It has always been a responsibility of the English subject (since before the late invasion by the Normans - i.e., in legal terms, more than 'since time immemorial') to take an active part in apprehending criminals (viz Hue and Cry, and that last remaining remnant, the citizen's arrest); after all, it is the ordinary people whose lives are most damaged by the criminal. However, recent endeavours by the govt to get us to grass on a whole range of infractions are another ball-game ('I'd like to report the Joneses at No 73: I'm sure they're claiming too much benefit...'): there is a difference, but I suppose you either see it or you don't. But from where this observer stands, we really have moved into Stasi-land. In fact I venture to suggest that there is chillingly much in common between
and if you ask, "Where is Dachau in all this?" I will point you at Gitmo.
Please don't dismiss this comparison, thin though it is, without giving it some thought.
I'm not sure that everybody would agree that this counts as one of our rights, but it seems so to me. The already beleaguered Legal Aid system is have its funds cut yet again - some commentators have said that the number of accused given legal help (already deeply cut) will be reduced by up to another 75%. Additionally, legal aid lawyers will have to tender for cases, which means that people in desperate need will be given lowest-bid help. A vast number of cases are already totally uneconomic for the few (but often excellent) firms who still do legal aid work. Still, easier to bang everyone up - or better still, deport them - than to spend money on finding out that some of the arrested are actually innocent or have rights. (Incidentally, it does not take much guessing to see who will be hit - as always, the most vulnerable; battered wives, the mentally ill, asylum seekers - oh, sorry, we're trying to get rid of that lot anyway!) So, even though it was one of the most recent of our rights to be won:-
17. The Right of Full Access to the Law for all.
In the light of the Catholic adoption agencies being obliged to place children with homosexual couples, and other moral directives from the state:-
18. Freedom of Religious Conscience.
And, in view of the massive increase in the number and nature of the agencies which can enter your home, often without even the requirement for a warrant that is placed on the police:-
19. The Sanctity of the Home. - I'm not sure about this one as an infringement of our liberty, but nevertheless it's so fundamental to our feelings about ourselves that I've included it anyway. The suggestion comes thanks to Peter Oborne (who writes in the Mail).
Well over 200 agencies can enter your home without a warrant. The most offensive must be the invasion of a home to 'check' because the occupants have not applied for a TV licence: it's also another example of the new need to prove one's innocence against unfounded accusations.
There are quite few liberties which (perhaps foolishly) we might not have thought of as liberties, because they seemed so inherent in being a citizen:-
20. The Right to Challenge Extradition in a Court. UK citizens can now be extradited (possibly without ever having been out of the UK) for actions which are not against British law - without evidence being presented in a British court.
21. The Right to Medical Confidentiality. The Health Secretary can require confidential information on a patient in England or Wales to be handed to any person or organisation he specifies.
22. I'm not sure what to call this one; I'll try The Right to Wear the Clothes of your own Choice (within the demands of decency!). It is an offence to wear clothing in public that make the authorities suspicious that you might be a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation.
23. Even while I was in the full flow of writing this page, it never occurred to me that I should ever have to add this particular item; but after the recent events involving Sadiq Khan, MP, I realise that I'm still naive: The Right to Private Discussion with your Lawyer or MP. (!) I cannot believe that we seem to have let this one slide; I think that the whole political concept of 'Being English' that grew up between, say, 1170 and 1970, has simply disappeared. There was a time, I believe, when we could have come close to revolution over this degree of snooping by the state... Still; at least we can shop at Tesco on a Sunday.
24. Now that police can take the property of people they simply suspect of certain crimes, on top of several other parties who can 'lawfully' remove money or property without reference to a court of law: Freedom from the Arbitrary Confiscation of Private Property.
I've been asked why I haven't included Freedom of the Press on this list, since, despite appearances, the Press in the UK is quite constrained by punitive libel laws and by the D-Notice system, which allows the government to prevent publication on a great range of issues supposedly connected with the national interest. The answer is that I want to try to highlight freedoms and liberties which have demonstrably been reduced, eroded, threatened.
25. No matter how closely you watch, they still fool you... or, least, they fooled me. It is a fundamental principle of justice that the accused be allowed to face the accuser. That right just slipped away with hardly a word of public discussion, and without this citizen realising its significance, until it all blew up again (June 2008). I fully accept the problems of encouraging witnesses to speak against brutal, possibly gang-centred, threatening people. But, once again, it's a matter of balance: to allow witness to be borne, against which there can be no defence, seems even more dangerous. The point is, though, that decisions of such fundamental gravity should be for society to make, not a few secret persons behind closed political (or even judical) doors.
At the core of all of this is the erosion of 'Due Process'. Which is what carries the risk of turning England into a Police State, rather than a 'well policed state'.
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