Law - new material (70)
01 January 2010
Counter–Terrorism Policy and Human Rights (Seventeenth Report): Bringing Human Rights Back In. Joint Committee on Human Rights, (HL Paper 86, HC 111) 25.3.10. This parliamentary report says that the government is overstating the threat of terrorism to the UK: “Since September 11th 2001 the Government has continuously justified many of its counterterrorism measures on the basis that there is a public emergency threatening the life of the nation. We question whether the country has been in such a state for more than eight years.” It also argues that this “permanent state of emergency inevitably has a deleterious effect on public debate about the justification for counter-terrorism measures.” It is critical of the Director General of the Security Service for giving public lectures while refusing “to give public evidence to us.” The report expresses concern about “the Government’s narrow definition of what amounts to complicity in torture” urging a “comprehensive review of the use of secret evidence and special advocates, in all contexts in which they are used.” The committee repeats its call for amendments to the Terrorism Act 2000. See: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt200910/jtselect/jtrights/86/86.pdf
Seven paragraphs which tell a sorry tale, Frances Webber. IRR website, February 2010. This article considers the Court of Appeal’s overruling of “the Foreign Secretary’s attempt to keep secret seven paragraphs summarising the British authorities’ awareness of a UK-resident Muslim’s subjection to cruel and degrading treatment while being held incommunicado in US custody, at a time when British intelligence officers were involved in his questioning.” As Webber observes: “What the sage reveals is the depth of complicity of the US and UK authorities in using ‘public interest immunity’ to cover up anything likely to embarrass either government.” Available at:
http://www.irr.org.uk/2010/february/ha000025.html
Garzón contra el franquismo. Los autos íntegros del juez sobre los crímenes de la dictadura, Público, 2010, pp. 261, Depósito Legal: B-21370-2010. Público newspaper published a booklet comprising two trial documents by judge Baltasar Garzón containing the preliminary findings and the case for indictment concerning crimes committed under the dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco, who held power in Spain from 1939 until his death in 1975, that was followed by a transition to democracy and the Constitution of 1978. The events that are under investigation are divided into three periods: from 17 July 1936 to February 1937 (large-scale repression under the War Edicts); from March 1937 to early 1945 (emergency summary war court-martials); and from 1945 to 1952 (killing guerrilla fighters and those who supported them). The introduction to this booklet notes the importance of these proceedings, because “For the first time in our history, an investigating magistrate...has opened a criminal case against those responsible for that military coup, treating them as what they were, delinquents and criminals to whom, therefore, the penal code must be applied.” It is also the first time in which allegations by associations for the recovery of historical memory and relatives of victims of the regime have had a positive response from a judicial body regarding “facts...that have never been the object of a criminal prosecution by the Spanish justice system”, and for which “impunity has been the norm to date”. The alleged crimes detailed in the documents include “illegal detentions...basically due to the existence of a systematic and preconceived plan to eliminate political opponents through multiple killings, torture, exile and forced disappearances (illegal detentions) of people as of 1936, during the years of the Civil War and subsequent post-war years, that occurred in different geographical points of the Spanish territory”, with the number of verified disappearances reaching the figure of 114,266, many of whom were extra-judicially executed. A key element of the trial, is the clash between the Amnesty Law 46/1977 that extinguished criminal responsibility for “all acts that had political purposes” and the “permanent” nature of crimes against humanity enshrined in international instruments of which Spain is a signatory. As a result of this case, judge Garzón is currently facing charges for “perverting the course of justice”.