An end to stop and search

As I've written over at CentreRight, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled today that the power to stop and search at random is unlawful.

I've covered this issue previously on this website and I point out once again that no successful prosecutions for terrorism offences ever resulted from these draconian stop and search powers in any case.  They failed to safeguard us from anything - they served only to intimidate, and to empower officials to intrude on us and our privacy without just cause - a terrible inversion of the proper relationship between the individual and the state,

So, today is a great day for freedom.  Random stop and search powers were an abuse of our historic, hard-won liberties and it is tremendous that it has come to an end. 

However, there are two notes of caution and regret that must be added.

First of all, this is the third occasion in very recent times that the European Court has had to tell the UK that we are behaving in a fundamentally illiberal and unjust way - together with the conviction of defendants solely or largely on the evidence of witnesses who do not attend trial for questioning, and the retention of samples from innocent people on the DNA database, this now shows a pattern of authoritarianism from our lawmakers that is to be lamented.

Secondly, let's not forget that this tremendous judgment cannot undo the embarrassment and anguish felt by the many people abused for no good reason under this now unlawful power.

By Alex Deane

Comments

[Paul]

I share the satisfaction and indeed joy in this decision. My thanks to those individuals involved, who persevered for so many years in going through the legal process and seeing this through to the end.

Next step is of course getting Parliament to amend the legislation!