Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill — House of Lords, 2018-12-03
Topic: Civil Rights
Jennifer Jones (Green Party, Left): My Lords, I will speak at rather more length than I do normally. I thought that my amendment was explained clearly in Committee yet I had to table another amendment for today because the problem still exists. Therefore, I will try to explain it carefully, although I am not a lawyer. This issue depends on clear thinking and some common sense As I made clear in Committee, I am completely opposed to people encouraging the membership and support of terrorist organisations. I am also deeply opposed to the terrorism bogeyman being used to justify laws that are disproportionate and which undermine the rights of law-abiding citizens without good justification. The Minister did not adequately address my concerns in Committee, which reinforced my view that Clause 1 is currently far too broad, represents an unacceptable breach of human rights and risks criminalising a range of perfectly innocent speech. Amendments 1 and 2 in my name would make the new criminal offence a reasonable one. I believe that not making significant changes to this clause would be a clear breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. As drafted, the offence is too vague to accord with the law and too broad to be a proportionate way to achieve a legitimate aim The Minister confirmed to the Committee that the clause is a direct response to the case of R v Choudary, in which the Court of Appeal considered the existing Section 12 offences. The Explanatory Notes state: "The Court of Appeal was clear that a central ingredient of the offence was inviting support from third parties for a proscribed organisation and that the offence ‘does not prohibit the holding of opinions or beliefs supportive of a proscribed organisation; or the expression of those opinions or beliefs’ … This clause therefore provides for a new offence which criminalises the expression of an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation" I covered the case in some depth in Committee so I will not repeat it in detail here, but the fact that the Government made it clear that the new offence is in response to the difficulties of prosecuting Choudary means that your Lordships’ House must understand Clause 1 in the light of that judgment. Let us not forget that Choudary was found guilty and his conviction was upheld by the Court of Appeal, so it is not as though there is some loophole through which he was able to slip I tabled two amendments to Clause 1 with the purpose of tightening this new offence to ensure that only people guilty of some wrongdoing will be guilty of a crime. The purposes of law and justice are not only to convict the guilty but to ensure that the innocent go free. In Committee, it was telling that the Minister, in response to my example of a political activist expressing support for an independent Kurdistan, had only, "a very high level of confidence that they would not fall foul of the Clause 1 offence" Anything short of absolute certainty is proof that the new offence is far too broad and will criminalise perfectly innocent behaviour The new subsection is best understood when contrasted against the existing Section 12 offence in the Terrorism Act 2000. There are three key differences between the two offences: there is no requirement to "invite" in the new offence; the expression of an opinion which "is supportive of" rather than "supports"; and the watering down of the guilty mind from intention to recklessness. In my analysis, each of these three changes represents a significant broadening when compared to this existing offence. The proper change is the first: the legal requirement of having to invite support was too tight and allowed people such as Choudary to rigorously support terrorist organisations, as long as they did not invite anyone else to do so. The other two changes make this new offence far too wide, in a way that goes beyond the Government’s stated purpose.