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Yesterday I posted some of my initial thoughts on Tony Blairs defence to Blair`s own interpretation of the charges, that both he and Nu-Labour are authoritarian, are intent on savaging British liberties, locking up those who dissent and that they abhor parliamentary or other accountability.

Two newspapers have commented on Blairs original article in the Observer:

Notebook
By Sam Leith

The Prime Minister yesterday wrote an article seeking to defend his record on civil liberties. “On ID cards,” he wrote, “there is a host of arguments, irrespective of security, why their time has come”.
Wouldn’t you be a bit more reassured if he made those arguments, rather than simply alluding to them?

William Rees-Mogg Times Online

Who is David Laverick? He is the chairman of the Adjudication Panel for England of the Standards Board for England. “There’s glory for you, boyo,” as the Welsh windbag himself might say. In other words Mr Laverick is the chairman of the sub-committee of a quango appointed by the Member of Parliament for Hull East, Mr John Prescott. It is all utter foolishness. The people of London elected Ken Livingstone on two occasions to be their mayor. They may have been mistaken to do so; he has never had my vote. But that was their democratic decision. Mr Laverick, and his two colleagues on the panel, decided that Mr Livingstone should not be mayor for four weeks of his second term.

No one ever elected them to their high office. They are not a court. Their closest connection with democracy is that they were appointed by the Member for Hull East. May Heaven forgive the voters of Hull East. The panel was established by law — one of the many foolish laws passed by the Blair administration — but they were not enforcing the law, they were enforcing their own subjective discretion.

I would not call Mr Laverick a war criminal, a concentration camp guard or a scumbag, because I do not think he is any of these things. I would only call him a pompous donkey, who has no understanding of his limited importance in the scheme of things, or of the respect he owes to the democratic choice of the people of London. No doubt, if I were a local councillor, he would find that my criticisms were “unnecessarily offensive and insensitive” — as indeed I hope they are. Fortunately the press still enjoys free speech, even if the Mayor of London does not.

The issue is more than a matter of a show-off mayor or a silly sub-committee of an unelected quango abusing its inappropriate powers. It concerns the ancient issue of “due process of law” that underlies Magna Carta, the English common law and the Constitution of the United States. Without due process, there is no law. A merely subjective judgment, lacking judicial safeguards, by an unelected tribunal, does not constitute due process. It is no better than the process by which Robespierre sent aristos to the guillotine, though one must admit that Ken makes a comic aristo and a four-week suspension is a milder penalty..
The Prime Minister knows what the issue is. He is against due process as such. He has written a most extraordinary attack on the whole concept in yesterday’s Observer. The article is so incautious that he must have written it himself.

“In theory,” Tony Blair writes, “traditional court processes and attitudes to civil liberties could work. But the modern world is different from the world for which these court processes were designed.” This view that due process is obsolete explains the Prime Minister’s conduct; it explains the connection between extradition without safeguards, detention without trial, Asbos without criminal offences, subjective and discretionary judgments, police powers to arrest, and increasing ministerial powers. They are all characteristic of Blair legislation; they all avoid due process of law.
I wish I could think of an appropriately “offensive and insensitive” epithet to describe Tony Blair. Perhaps “antinomian” would do.

Yesterday I alluded to the fact that Blair`s defence had nothing to do with the traditional view of us in Britian that our government was obliged to be the protector of inexorable rights, and that in his view government had become the provider of rights, which is a Roman Law concept.

This is also the view of the EU as can be seen in its Carta of Fundamental Rights. Statewatch maintains a number of “Observatories” on civil liberties and justice and home affairs and on secrecy and freedom of information in the EU:

Here are the links to two of them;

Statewatch Observatory in defence of freedom and democracy - new laws and practices affecting civil liberties and rights in the EU, UK and US after 11 September

on ASBOS Statewatch says: Tthe key point remains that, as in all cases, they are civil orders.
This means that in the application process, for an ASBO, there is no jury and hearsay evidence is admissible. If breached, the individual has committed a criminal offence which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

Click here for further links.