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Counter-Terrorism Bill

I did know about the Canadian Prime Minister, but I forgot about him. Perhaps I should not have done. We also looked at post-charge questioning, because, again, it is a crucial issue. Is it true that we could question people post-charge and get the same quality of information? The response was that in the view of many in the legal system, which, again, includes Lord Carlile, post-charge questioning is certainly not a silver bullet. They believe that it will make a limited difference to cases. We persistently asked Lord Carlile about threshold testing, which was an important issue for us. He said:"““It is desirable in as many cases as possible that people should be charged with something approaching the criminality of which it is reasonably suspected that they are guilty and on which a prima facie case will be presented.””" When we asked whether it was more capable of supporting a person's civil liberties, he replied:"““I do not see that as being any more human-rights compatible than a properly judicially supervised extended detention period that results in proper charges being brought on a sound basis, without the necessity to use the threshold test, which is undoubtedly second-best, as the Crown Prosecution Service recognises.””––[Official Report, Counter-Terrorism Public Bill Committee, 24 April 2008; c. 122.]" We were concerned to see the evidence that we took factually represented.