Act quickly over terror laws, QC tells Clarke,new home secretary

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The government must act quickly to announce what it will do to end the detention of 12 foreign terrorist suspects if it is to avoid an embarrassing defeat at the European court of human rights, a leading human rights QC said yesterday.

David Pannick QC, who often represents the government, said renewing the laws permitting indefinite detention was not an option for Charles Clarke, the new home secretary, after the law lords ruling on Thursday that detention without trial breached the European convention on human rights.

"I think any home secretary who is unwise enough to persuade parliament to maintain detention without trial will inevitably suffer further legal defeats," he said. The detainees, who would inevitably succeed in Strasbourg, could also claim compensation from the government for their unlawful detention, he said.

"It's inevitable that they would lose in Strasbourg because the judges would have even less tolerance for exceptional steps to detain people without trial when no other European nation has thought such steps were necessary," Mr Pannick said.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,11026,1376496,00.html