The Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom, formally introduced into Parliament on 19 November 2001, two months after the terrorist attacks in the United States on 11 September. It received royal assent and came into force on 14 December 2001. Many of its measures are not specifically related to terrorism, and a Parliamentary committee was critical of the swift timetable for such a long bill including non-emergency measures.
Extraordinary rendition is a euphemism for state-sponsored kidnapping in another jurisdiction and transfer to a third state. The phrase usually refers to a United States-led program used during the War on Terror, which had the purpose of circumventing the source country's laws on interrogation, detention, extradition and/or torture. Extraordinary rendition is a type of extraterritorial abduction, but not all extraterritorial abductions include transfer to a third country.
His Majesty's Prison Belmarsh is a Category A men's prison in Thamesmead, southeast London, England. The prison is used for high-profile cases, particularly those concerning national security. Within the grounds is the High Security Unit (HSU), which consists of 48 single cells. It is run by His Majesty's Prison Service. The prison has been called "Britain's Guantanamo Bay" due to the long-term detention of terrorism suspects without charge. Considered the toughest prison in the UK, Belmarsh is also notoriously known as "Hellmarsh" due to the high number of physical and authority abuses reported by both the prison's inmates, and by human rights activists.
The Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, intended to deal with the Law Lords' ruling of 16 December 2004 that the detention without trial of eight foreigners at HM Prison Belmarsh under Part 4 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 was unlawful, being incompatible with European human rights laws.
In Canada, a security certificate is a legal mechanism by which the Canadian government can detain and deport permanent residents and all other non-citizens living in Canada.
Binyam Ahmed Mohamed, also referred to as Benjamin Mohammed, Benyam Mohammed or Benyam Mohammed al-Habashi, is an Ethiopian national and United Kingdom resident, who was detained as a suspected enemy combatant by the US Government in Guantanamo Bay prison between 2004 and 2009 without charges. He was arrested in Pakistan and transported first to Morocco under the US's extraordinary rendition program, where he claimed to have been interrogated under torture.
Omar Mahmoud Othman, better known as Abu Qatada al-Filistini, is a Salafi cleric and Jordanian national. Abu Qatada was accused of having links to terrorist organisations and frequently imprisoned in the United Kingdom without formal charges or prosecution before being deported to Jordan, where he was acquitted of multiple terrorism charges.
Hider Hanani, alias Amar Makhlulif and kunyaAbu Doha, is an Algerian alleged to be member of the al-Qaeda and GSPC terrorist networks.
A and others v Secretary of State for the Home Department[2004] UKHL 56 is a UK human rights case heard before the House of Lords. It held that the indefinite detention of foreign prisoners in Belmarsh without trial under section 23 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
Charkaoui v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 2007 SCC 9, is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on the constitutionality of procedures for determining the reasonableness of a security certificate and for reviewing detention under a certificate. The Court held that the security certificate process, which prohibited the named individual from examining evidence used to issue the certificate, violated the right to liberty and habeas corpus under section 7, 9 and 10 of the Canadian Charter. The Court however rejected the appellant arguments that the extension of detentions violated the right against indefinite detention, that the differential treatment violated equality rights, and that the detention violated the rule of law. As remedy, the Court declared the "judicial confirmation of certificates and review of detention" to be of no force and effect, striking down articles 33 and 77 to 85 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, but suspended the ruling for one year.
A control order is an order made by the Home Secretary of the United Kingdom to restrict an individual's liberty for the purpose of "protecting members of the public from a risk of terrorism". Its definition and power were provided by Parliament in the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005. Control orders were also included in the Australian Anti-Terrorism Act 2005.
Administrative detention is arrest and detention of individuals by the state without trial. A number of jurisdictions claim that it is done for security reasons. Many countries claim to use administrative detention as a means to combat terrorism or rebellion, to control illegal immigration, or to otherwise protect the ruling regime.
There are cases, both documented and alleged, that involve the usage of torture by members of the United States government, military, law enforcement agencies, intelligence agencies, health care services, and other public organizations both in and out of the country.
Civil liberties in the United Kingdom are part of UK constitutional law and have a long and formative history. This is usually considered to have begun with Magna Carta of 1215, a landmark document in British constitutional history. Development of civil liberties advanced in common law and statute law in the 17th and 18th centuries, notably with the Bill of Rights 1689. During the 19th century, working-class people struggled to win the right to vote and join trade unions. Parliament responded with new legislation beginning with the Reform Act 1832. Attitudes towards suffrage and liberties progressed further in the aftermath of the first and second world wars. Since then, the United Kingdom's relationship to civil liberties has been mediated through its membership of the European Convention on Human Rights. The United Kingdom, through Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, led the drafting of the Convention, which expresses a traditional civil libertarian theory. It became directly applicable in UK law with the enactment of the Human Rights Act 1998.
Sonia Burgess was a leading British immigration lawyer. Winstanley-Burgess solicitors, co-founded by Burgess in 1975, became one of the UK's "most respected asylum and immigration law practices".
Errors as to precedent facts, sometimes called jurisdictional facts, in Singapore administrative law are errors committed by public authorities concerning facts that must objectively exist or not exist before the authorities have the power to take actions or make decisions under legislation. If an error concerning a precedent fact is made, the statutory power has not been exercised lawfully and may be quashed by the High Court if judicial review is applied for by an aggrieved person. The willingness of the Court to review such errors of fact is an exception to the general rule that the Court only reviews errors of law.
Syed Talha Ahsan is a British poet and translator. He is winner of the Platinum and Bronze Koestler Awards 2012 for his poetry. He won the Koestler Award for his poem "Grieving",. He is also the translator of a tenth-century Arabic poem, "Above the Dust", by Syrian Abu Firas Al-Hamdani, on his captivity in Byzantium.
Michael Benedict Emmerson CBE KC is a British barrister, specialising in public international law, human rights and humanitarian law, and international criminal law. From 2011 to 2017, he was the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-Terrorism. Emmerson is currently an Appeals Chamber Judge of the UN Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals sitting on the Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. He has previously served as Special Adviser to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, and Special Adviser to the Appeals Chamber of the ECCC.
E v Secretary of State for the Home Department was a landmark Court of Appeal case of 2004 which significantly developed the doctrine of error of fact as a distinct ground which was taken in conjunction with the question of new evidence being considered in order to establish the error. The case laid out in definitive terms the criteria for the court to review a finding of mistake of fact leading to unfairness. In establishing an error of fact according to the requirements, a duty was identified to consider a decision; in particular, the duty to reopen a matter or direct a rehearing. The question of new evidence produced after the hearing but before the decision date was considered within the context of the power of the Immigration Appeal Tribunal (IAT) to direct a rehearing.
A. and Others v United Kingdom is a human rights case decided by the European Court of Human Rights. It unanimously held that holding prisoners indefinitely under the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 was incompatible with Article 5.
