Falconer: Camp Delta is affront to democracy

Last updated at 11:28 13 September 2006


The Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, today attacked the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay as a "shocking affront to democracy".

In the most savage criticism yet of the Bush administration by a Cabinet minister, Tony Blair's close ally said that it was unacceptable that America could deliberately put detainees

beyond the rule of law.

Lord Falconer’s outburst underlines the frustration felt within Downing Street at Washington's refusal to back down over Camp Delta in Cuba.

It emerged last night that far from closing the detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, the US is

building a new £106million facility known as Camp 6.

Channel 4 News revealed declassified information showing that a British inmate was being subjected to solitary confinement for nearly a year, including three months without any sunlight at all.

Another Briton had been the victim of regular beatings, their lawyer said.

George Bush announced last week that suspects linked to the 9/11 attacks were being transferred

from secret CIA jails across the world to Guantanamo Bay.

But in a speech to be delivered today in Australia, Lord Falconer says: "It is a part of the acceptance of the rule of law that the courts will be able to exercise jurisdiction over the

executive.

"Otherwise the conduct of the executive is not

defined and restrained by law. It is because of that principle, that the USA deliberately seeking to put the detainees beyond the reach of the law in Guantanamo Bay is so shocking an affront to

the principles of democracy.

"Without independent judicial control, we cannot give effect to the essential values of our

society."

He was making his comments in the Magna Carta Lecture, delivered annually in Australia by senior British legal figures, to senators, MPs, judges and academics at the Supreme Court of New South Wales in Sydney.

It is the second time Lord Falconer has spoken out about the camp, where 450 terror suspects

are thought to be detained.

In June the Lord Chancellor denounced the facility as a "recruiting agent" for terrorism,

and described its existence as "intolerable and wrong".

Earlier, the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, described the base as "unacceptable" and called for it to be closed.

Prime Minister Tony Blair has also shifted from his muted criticism, having originally called

the camp an "anomaly", to clear signals that he wants it closed.

Amnesty International UK media director Mike Blakemore said today: "It's encouraging to

hear a senior UK Government figure finally use this kind of language.

"We'd like to see the UK Government as a whole pressing urgently for the camp's closure and for the release or fair trial of eight long-term residents of the UK still held without trial

at Guantanamo."

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