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Terrorizing Criminal Law

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Abstract

The essays in Waldron’s Torture, Terror, and Trade-Offs have important implications for debates about the criminalization of terrorism and terrorism-related offences and its consequences for criminal law and criminal justice. His reflections on security speak directly to contemporary debates about the preventive role of the criminal law. And his analysis of inter-personal security trade-offs invites much closer attention to the costs of counter-terrorism policies, particularly those pursued outside the criminal process. But is Waldron right to speak of a ‘welcome the return to the criminal justice model’? This article considers the arguments in favour of prioritizing the prosecution of terrorist suspects and asks if their prosecution can safely proceed without undue hazard to the criminal law and criminal process.

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Notes

  1. Waldron (2010)—hereafter TTT.

  2. Finkelstein and Lewis (2010, 195).

  3. Ashworth and Zedner (2011, 2012).

  4. David Cole and Ronald Dworkin, among others, stand out as resolute in their resistance to the security imperative. See e.g., (Cole 2003; Dworkin 2003).

  5. TTT ch.2.

  6. Waldron writes ‘the balance we ought to be talking about is not so much a balance between one thing we all like (liberty) and another thing we all like (security). It is more like the balance that is sometimes referred to when we say we should balance the interests of a dissident individual or minority against the interests of the community as a whole.’ TTT 34.

  7. TTT 123–127.

  8. TTT 263–4.

  9. Fly sheet to TTT.

  10. Burawoy (2005), Loader and Sparks (2010).

  11. TTT 112.

  12. Tadros (2008), Ashworth and Zedner (2011), Dennis and Sullivan (2012), Horder (2012), and Ashworth and Zedner (2012). See also the Special Issue (2011) San Diego Law Review ‘The Morality of Preventive Restriction of Liberty’ 48(4).

  13. TTT 26. See also (Gardner 2006).

  14. Ignatieff (2004), Zedner (2005).

  15. J Locke Two Treatises of Government II s.93 cited in TTT 40.

  16. TTT13–14.

  17. TTT 43.

  18. Farmer (2006), Dubber (2005).

  19. TTT 45.

  20. TTT 15.

  21. TTT 12.

  22. TTT 12.

  23. TTT 117.

  24. On the relationship between objective and subjective security see Zedner (2003, 155).

  25. TTT 46. Here Waldron is referring to more dubious psychological values like making ourselves seem ‘more ferocious and vengeful’ in our responses to terrorist attack. His point applies no less to subjective security writ large.

  26. Though see Schneier (2006).

  27. Zedner (2011, 110).

  28. TTT 46.

  29. Namely the weighing of risks in cases where actions or measures that seek to reduce one risk create another.

  30. Zedner (2011, 120).

  31. The shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes on the London Underground by the Metropolitan Police just weeks after the July 2005 London bombings and a day after a failed further bomb plot is an obvious example.

  32. Stuntz (2002).

  33. TTT 16.

  34. TTT 7.

  35. Feldman (2002).

  36. See e.g. ‘Belmarsh—Britain's Guantanamo Bay?’ BBC News 6 October 2004 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3714864.stm. Last accessed 22.03.2012.

  37. Following the ‘Belmarsh case’. A and others v. Secretary of State for the Home Department [2004] UKHL 56.

  38. Or for whom deportation was not available because the suspect was a British national or could not be deported for risk of torture or inhumane treatment.

  39. Under the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 s.2. Similar orders were also introduced under the Australian Anti-Terrorism Act 2005.

  40. Lord Hope in Secretary of State for the Home Department v AF (No 3) [2009] UKHL 28 at 77. See discussion in Kavanagh (2010, 836).

  41. See discussion of these cases in Macdonald (2007), Zedner (2007a), Walker (2007), Bonner (2006).

  42. Under the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011.

  43. Dworkin (2002) cited TTT 37.

  44. TTT 37.

  45. TTT 16.

  46. TTT 17.

  47. The need to avoid ‘securitising’, and thereby undermining, strategies of integration aimed at those at risk of recruitment to terrorist groups is a key principle of the UK government’s Prevent Strategy. See http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/counter-terrorism/review-of-prevent-strategy/. Last accessed 22.03.2012.

  48. Since 9/11 British authorities have arrested 1,963 people for terrorism offences, but convicted only 246 people for terrorism related offences. Source: http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/uploaded_files/humanrights/ehrc_hrr_full.pdf 178. Last accessed 22.03.2012.

  49. Macdonald (2011). JCHR Renewal of Control Orders Legislation 2011. Eighth Report of Session 2010-11. HC 838.

  50. TTT 17.

  51. Section 78 of Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 gives the courts discretion to exclude from the criminal trial evidence that has been obtained unfairly. However, that section has given rise to a considerable body of case law, not least the case of A and others v Secretary of State for the Home Department (No 2) [2005] UKHL 71, in which it was held that, while evidence directly obtained by torture is inadmissible, ‘the Secretary of State does not act unlawfully if he certifies, arrests, searches and detains on the strength of what I shall for convenience call foreign torture evidence.’ para.47. See analysis in Ashworth and Redmayne (2010, 350).

  52. Macdonald (2011).

  53. As evidenced, not least, by the fact that seven of those subject to Control Orders absconded. Equality and Human Rights Commission Human Rights Review 2012 183. www.equalityhumanrights.com/human-rights/human-rights-review/. Last accessed 22.03.2012.

  54. Walker (2009b).

  55. I have argued ‘One of the most damaging apsects of the move to pre-emption is that the demands of security are deemed to warrant departure from the ordinary strictures of the criminal process.’ Zedner (2007b, 264).

  56. Equality and Human Rights Commission Human Rights Review 2012 182. www.equalityhumanrights.com/human-rights/human-rights-review/. Last accessed 22.03.2012.

  57. Zedner (2008, 19).

  58. TTT 10.

  59. Ibid. Though we might take issue with Waldron’s apparent assumption in this quote that ‘increments in safety’ do in fact result from infringing liberties.

  60. Simester and von Hirsch (2009, 2011) ch.s 4 and 5.

  61. Ashworth and Zedner (2012), Dennis and Sullivan (2012).

  62. Ashworth and Blake (1996), Tadros and Tierney (2004), Ashworth (2006).

  63. Ashworth and Redmayne (2010).

  64. Zedner (2007b).

  65. Kavanagh (2010), Tomkins (2011).

  66. Zedner (2007a), Lynch and Reilly (2007).

  67. Ashworth and Zedner (2010).

  68. TTT 42–3.

  69. See e.g., Cabinet Office (2011) Security and Justice Green Paper Cm 8194. London: HMSO ch.1. http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm81/8194/8194.pdf. Last accessed 22.03.2012. Though most of the responses to the Green Paper question the strength of claims as to the need for secrecy.

  70. Macdonald (2011, 9).

  71. Made by Macdonald (2011, 9–10).

  72. S.10(5)(a) Terrorism Preventive and Investigation Measures Act 2011.

  73. House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution. Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill 19th Report of Session 2010-12: 4. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201012/ldselect/ldconst/198/198.pdf. Last accessed 22.03.2012.

  74. Ashworth and Zedner (2012), Husak (2008).

  75. TTT 108.

  76. TTT 49.

  77. TTT 49.

  78. TTT 51.

  79. TTT 49.

  80. TTT 79.

  81. Ibid.

  82. TTT 49.

  83. Dworkin (2003, 2002).

  84. Fenwick (2002), Roach (2007).

  85. S.1Terrorism Act 2006 (UK), for example, prohibits the making of ‘a statement that is likely to be understood by some or all of the members of the public to whom it is published as a direct or indirect encouragement or other inducement to them to the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism or Convention offences.’

  86. ‘Preventive Justice’ is the subject of a Project being conducted at the University of Oxford by the author, Andrew Ashworth and Ambrose Lee, generously funded by the AHRC. The main objective of the project is to develop an account of the principles and values that should guide and limit the state’s use of preventive techniques that involve coercion. See e.g., (Ashworth and Zedner 2011). See also (Tadros 2008).

  87. Though see Tadros (2008), Ashworth (2009), Goldsmith (2007).

  88. As the English law of attempts requires under the Criminal Attempts Act 1981.

  89. Zedner (2009).

  90. By contrast for an interesting defence of criminalizing terrorist threats see (Walen 2011).

  91. Melia (2011, 144).

  92. Roach (2011, 449).

  93. Simester and von Hirsch (2011).

  94. Tadros and Hodgson (2009).

  95. Ashworth (2009, 89).

  96. Terrorism Act 2000 s.57(1). See discussion in Walker (2009b, 22).

  97. Walker cites the examples of ‘wires, batteries, rubber gloves, scales, electronic timers, overalls, balaclavas, agricultural fertilizer, and gas cylinders’ Walker (2009a, 187).

  98. Ashworth (2011, 248).

  99. Ashworth (2009, 89).

  100. Gillan and Quinton v United Kingdom (2010) 50 EHRR 45, [2010] Crim LR 415.

  101. ‘Police use of terrorism stop and search powers drops 90 per cent’ The Daily Telegraph (13 October 2011) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/8824203/Police-use-of-terrorism-stop-and-search-powers-drops-90-per-cent.html.

  102. Under the Terrorism Act 2006 terrorist suspects could be held for up to 28 days. This statutory period lapsed in January 2012 with the result that the maximum term reverted to 14 days.

  103. Under the Criminal Evidence Order Northern Ireland (1988).

  104. S.34 of Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 significantly curtailed the right to silence by allowing adverse inferences to be drawn in certain circumstances where the accused fails to mention any fact which he later relies upon at trial (Hillyard 1994; Dyzenhaus 2001).

  105. Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Lord Carlile, quoted in House of Commons Library (2011) The Use of Intercept Evidence in Terrorism Cases Standard Note: SN/HA/5249.

  106. Lord Carlile QC, Second report of the independent reviewer pursuant to section 14(3) of the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 19 February 2007, available at:http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm71/7194/7194.asp. Paras 34-5. Last accessed 22.03.2012.

  107. JUSTICE Intercept Evidence: Lifting the Ban (2006); House of Commons Library (2011) The Use of Intercept Evidence in Terrorism Cases Standard Note: SN/HA/5249.

  108. Quote by the then Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Andy Hayman in oral evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee. Quoted ibid 6.

  109. Walker (2009b, 23).

  110. Counter Terrorism Act 2008 s. 76(1)(a). Though under s.2 of the same act ‘It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to prove that they had a reasonable excuse for their action’.

  111. (Walker 2009a, 206).

  112. (Walker 2009a, 210).

  113. TTT 133–4.

  114. The principle of the least restrictive alternative, see (Ashworth and Zedner 2012).

  115. Dworkin (2002).

  116. And to this end, I concur wholeheartedly with Waldron’s insistence that: ‘We are not entitled to readjust the system of civil liberties simply to make ourselves safer. If we are concerned to make ourselves safer, any readjustment must be filtered through the medium of these principles.’ TTT 18.

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to colleagues at the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, University of Glasgow; Department of Government, LSE; and Faculty of Law, University of Pennsylvania for their discussion of earlier versions of this article. I thank Andrew Ashworth, John Ip, Nicola Lacey, Ambrose Lee, Massimo Renzo, Adam Tomkins, and Patrick Tomlin for their insightful comments on an earlier draft; Daniel Alati for his research assistance; and the Arts and Humanities Research Council for the award of a grant for a three- year study of ‘Preventive Justice’ (ID: AH/H015655/1).

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  1. University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Lucia Zedner

  2. UNSW, Sydney, Australia

    Lucia Zedner

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Zedner, L. Terrorizing Criminal Law. Criminal Law, Philosophy 8, 99–121 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11572-012-9166-9

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