Freezing orer ruling a victory for democracy

The government’s use of control orders to freeze the assets of suspected terrorists undermines the sovereignty of Parliament, lawyers claim.
In A and others v HM Treasury  it was ruled that the government’s introduction through Orders in Council of UN resolutions requiring control over financing of terrorism was unlawful and without proper Parliamentary scrutiny.

Making his judgment, Mr Justice Collins said: “Counsel for the applicants have submitted that the means used to apply the obligations imposed by the UN Resolutions is unlawful. Parliament has been bypassed by use of Orders in Council. But in deciding the appropriate way in which the obligations should be applied and in particular in creating the criminal offences set out in the Orders it was necessary that Parliamentary approval should be obtained. Those submissions are in my judgment entirely persuasive”. Collins J said the orders should be quashed.

Jules Carey, of the police actions department at Tuckers solicitors, who acted on behalf of one of the claimants, says the effect of the judgment can not be overstated.

“It is the sovereignty of Parliament that is at stake here; the foundation block of the British constitution. If government can, without consulting Parliament, give itself powers to create criminal offences and take away fundamental rights then we are watching the sun set on democracy. The government will have sacrificed the very values that terrorism wishes to destroy,” he says.
The measures, introduced under the Terrorism (United Nations Measures) Order 2006 and the Al-Qaida and Taliban (United Nations Measures) Order 2006, allowed the Treasury to freeze the assets of those suspected of involvement in terrorist financing.

The claimants, who are yet to be charged, were allowed only funds for basic provisions and made to account for all expenses. A failure to provide detailed expenses could have resulted in a maximum seven-year prison term. Despite promises from the Treasury, judicial safeguards and a special advocates procedure for the use of closed source evidence have yet to materialise.

Jane Kennedy, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, says:  “The government continues to be fully committed to defending and maintaining our asset-freezing regime which makes an important contribution to our national security by helping to prevent funds being used for terrorist purposes and is central to our obligations under successive UN Security Council Resolutions to combat global terrorism”.

The Treasury intends to appeal the decision.