Court challenge to Blunkett

Home Secretary David Blunkett is to face a legal challenge to his plans to lock up suspected terrorists indefinitely without trial.

Civil rights organisation Liberty announced that it will contest the Home Secretary's unprecedented move, to be announced later today, to put the UK under "a state of public emergency".

The organisation's director, John Wadham, said Liberty would seek to challenge that declaration at the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. And he described the plan to hold suspects without trial, subject only to a review every six months, as "a fundamental violation of the rule of law, of rights and traditional values".

Opponents, including Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs, were angered by Mr Blunkett's declaration yesterday that he would not be deterred by "airy-fairy" civil libertarians. Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said his party would refuse to accept "serious erosion" of basic rights and freedoms and said the Government must consult. Mr Blunkett, however, is determined to push through emergency legislation by Christmas.

Although the Government looks assured of broad Tory support and a Commons majority, much will depend on the weight of opposition from Labour MPs.

Today's declaration is designed to allow the Government to opt out from the European Convention on Human Rights, which bans detention without trial. Article 15 of the Convention permits governments to ignore their normal obligations "in time of war or other public emergencies". Under the proposed new law, foreign nationals suspected of involvement in terrorism could be detained or sent to a "safe" third country. They would be held for six months after which their case would be reviewed by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission with further reviews every six months.

Suspects would be allowed legal representation but would be permitted to appeal only on a point of law and, critically, would be barred from seeking judicial review, a move often used in the past to stop ministers in their tracks.

Mr Blunkett said yesterday that only a small number of people would be detained under the scheme. But he went on: "I don't give a damn whether it's one, a dozen or 20; the important thing is that they don't put our lives at risk or enable others to put peoples' lives at risk elsewhere."

In a separate move, the Government is today bringing forward new powers to control bureaux de change amid warnings that they are being used to launder vast sums of "dirty" money, including funding for terrorism.

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