A SENIOR judicial figure has criticised the Government’s anti-terrorism laws for having “sinister” constitutional implications while failing to improve public protection.

Lord Lloyd of Berwick, a retired law lord and chairman for six years of the Security Commission, said that anti- terrorism measures rushed in since 2000 were unjustified and did not add to public safety.

The peer, who chaired an inquiry into anti-terrorism legislation in 1995, also gave warning that attempts to amend the Human Rights Act were likely to prove fruitless, as judges would still be the ones interpreting the laws.

Threats by ministers that they would legislate to fetter judges’ discretion were “very sinister indeed”, he said.

He said he hoped that the Court of Appeal would uphold a recent ruling against what he called the Government’s “extremely restrictive” control orders regime.

Lord Lloyd, addressing a conference about terrorism law held in London by Clifford Chance, the City law firm, said that the Terrrorism Act 2000 — which was largely based on his report — was thought to be fair and comprehensive.

It was regarded as giving the public all the protection they needed. But the same could not be said of measures rushed through since, without proper scrutiny.

The Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 had enacted measures to detain foreign suspects without trial indefinitely, he said — a “very serious step for any government to take at any time” and a “clear breach” of Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

“Such a step would be acceptable in war time . . . but we were not at war in 2001,” he said. The only other justification would be an “emergency threatening the life of the nation”.

“Of course individual life was threatened, and will continue to be, so long as the threat remains with us.

“But on any meaning of the word, one could not say that the life of the nation was threatened.” That was the case then and is so now, he added.

The measure had been ruled against in 2004 by the House of Lords in the case of terror suspects detained at Belmarsh prison in southeast London. But he said he was not sure that the Government had learnt the lessons of that decision.

This was that “there is no escape from the effect of the Human Rights Act 1998 by simply asserting that it is the primary duty of the Government to protect public safety”.

That was a primary duty but not the only consideration, he said.

Lord Lloyd, who was also the first commissioner for interception of communication, from 1988-90, said that in response to the Belmarsh ruling the Prime Minister had promised legislation to limit the role of judges in interpreting human rights decisions.

A similar response came after the recent ruling of Mr Justice Sullivan against the control orders. “The implications of that seem to be to be very sinister indeed,” Lord Lloyd said.

“The Government can, of course, amend the Human Rights Act. But sooner or later it must realise that it can’t amend the European Convention on Human Rights, to which we are party.”

“It can’t, by an Act of Parliament, say that the Convention must say what it wants it to say.”

On control orders, he said that even in their standard form, these were little below house arrest, extremely restrictive, and without the safeguards of the criminal process.

“The Prime Minister justified the control orders regime on the basis that there were only 12 in place — as if somehow that makes it all right.

“It is a bit like trying to justify the July 7 attacks by saying that only 55 people were killed.

“These 12 orders seem to me to be of very grave and sinister importance — and I hope that Mr Justice Sulllivan’s decision is upheld and that control orders will disappear from the scene.”

• Police have confirmed that two young men arrested under anti-terror laws in Britain are being investigated for links with an alleged Canadian bomb plot.

  The details emerged as one of Scotland Yard’s most senior officers tried to appease the Muslim community by apologising for the “disruption and inconvenience” caused by last week’s anti-terrorism raid in Forest Gate, East London.

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