The Liberal Democrats’ “Freedom Bill”

Posted by Andrew Adams on February 27, 2009
Filed Under Civil liberties, Politics |

While Labour continues to devise yet more illiberal policies and the Tories fail to convince that they will be an improvement, it is heartening to see that at least one of our major parties is making a firm and principled stand on the issue of civil liberties.

The Liberal Democrats have unveiled their “Freedom Bill” aimed at rolling back some of the restrictions on our freedoms imposed by Labour and the Tories in the last two decades.

It contains twenty proposals -

• Scrap ID cards for everyone, including foreign nationals.

• Ensure that there are no restrictions in the right to trial by jury for serious offences including fraud.

• Restore the right to protest in Parliament Square, at the heart of our democracy.

• Abolish the flawed control orders regime.

• Renegotiate the unfair extradition treaty with the United States.

• Restore the right to public assembly for more than two people.

• Scrap the ContactPoint database of all children in Britain.

• Strengthen freedom of information by giving greater powers to the information commissioner and reducing exemptions.

• Stop criminalising trespass.

• Restore the public interest defence for whistleblowers.

• Prevent allegations of “bad character” from being used in court.

• Restore the right to silence when accused in court.

• Prevent bailiffs from using force.

• Restrict the use of surveillance powers to the investigation of serious crimes and stop councils snooping.

• Restore the principle of double jeopardy in UK law.

• Remove innocent people from the DNA database.

• Reduce the maximum period of pre-charge detention to 14 days.

• Scrap the ministerial veto that allowed the government to block the release of cabinet minutes relating to the Iraq war.

• Require explicit parental consent for biometric information to be taken from children.

• Regulate CCTV following a Royal Commission on cameras.

Personally I think that this is a very good list of proposals, most of which I would strongly support. I also think it is a bold and brave document - after all, civil liberties are not exactly a vote-winning issue and some of the measures will give their opponents plenty of scope for attack. Labour will no doubt label any repeal of its anti-terror legislation as proof that the LibDems are “soft on terrorism”, while in a climate where is a strong puplic perception that the law is unfairly balanced in favour of criminals at the expense of victims any moves to strengthen the rights of defendants is bound to attract strong criticism from all sides.

Of course it will not reflect all our individual concerns and priorities and there are individual areas where some of us may disagree; personally I don’t get too worried by CCTV in public places and I’m not yet conviced that ContactPoint is as sinister as some of its critics suggest, and I would make some further amendments to recent anti-terror laws such as abolishing the absurd offence of “glorifiying terrorism”. However, it is an excellent starting point which can provide a focus for those of us deeply concerned about abuses of our civil liberties and generate a wider debate on the issue. It doesn’t claim to be a comprehensive document which addresses every single violation of our liberties, and people can suggest other measures they think should be included.

I think the LibDems should be commended for producing the Freedom Bill and we should do our best to support it.

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