Abu Qatada

Lord Judd Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his intervention, for all the experience that he brings to these matters, and for reminding the House, as I did in my Statement, that successive Governments have tried to get this man out of the country for over 10 years, since 2001. This and the previous Government have obviously faced some difficulties in that. The noble Lord talked about the future and mentioned that in three months these bail conditions are likely to expire unless we have got Abu Qatada out of the country—I sincerely hope we will have done—or he will be detained again for some other reason. The noble Lord then speculated that it might be that, after the three months expire, we find we have nothing else to use but TPIMs. As he said, that can only last two years and we would then be in some difficulty. He then rightly stressed the important point that one case might make bad law, and that the matter should be referred to the reviewer of counterterrorism. I can assure the noble Lord that the reviewer will examine this and its consequences. At the moment, we are satisfied that we will make some progress—I hope that we will—and will have a happier outcome to announce within the next three months.

[Lord Judd]

To follow the intervention by my noble friend Lord Dubs, this is obviously a problem that arises because of the inability to use intercept evidence in court. We all know that. It is a pressing issue because some of us in the House—I am sure I am not alone—would be deeply troubled if we went down the road that would tailor human rights to suit a flawed system of administering justice rather than ensuring that our system of justice was robust enough to handle such a desperate case. This is obviously an incredibly serious case. From that standpoint, it seems that the urgency is not simply to look at human rights in the European context but to look at our system of justice. If we have two systems of justice in operation resulting in the problem now before us, we must ensure that we have one system of European justice capable of dealing with terrorists of this kind.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am not sure that I would go as far as the noble Lord in saying that we have two systems of justice. We have our own justice but obviously we also have appeals from that to the European Court of Human Rights. His principal question was about intercept evidence. Again, I do not think I can take the noble Lord much further than I took the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. This is a very difficult issue. I appreciate that there are very strong views on either side. It is not a decision that any Government will make lightly. As I said, I have certainly changed my view on this more than once, and I think that others have. I know that my noble friend Lord Howard, who made earlier comments on this, confessed that he had changed his mind on intercept. The same is true of others. It is being looked at by a committee of Privy Counsellors, and we should wait for their decision.