{"id":7063,"date":"2010-01-12T17:57:31","date_gmt":"2010-01-12T17:57:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=7063"},"modified":"2017-01-09T14:23:57","modified_gmt":"2017-01-09T14:23:57","slug":"european-court-rules-stop-and-search-powers-illegal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=7063","title":{"rendered":"European court rules stop and search powers illegal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Judges decide section 44 violates claimant\u2019s human rights but journalists and protesters are unlikely to see change on the ground says Leah Borromeo<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Home Office is to appeal a European Court of Human Rights decision<\/a> that the use of section 44 (Terrorism Act 2000<\/a>) to stop and search<\/a> individuals violates the right to respect for a private life guaranteed by article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Section 44 has long drawn criticism from protesters who argue the police have used to power to infringes on their right to protest.<\/p>\n

Policing and Security Minister David Hanson MP claims section 44 powers are \u201can important tool in a package of measures in the on-going fight against terrorism.\u201d Hanson says the government is \u201cdisappointed\u201d with the ruling and \u201cwill seek to appeal\u201d.<\/p>\n

The case brought to the ECHR was that of Kevin Gillan and journalist Pennie Quinton who were stopped and searched en route to a demonstration against the world\u2019s largest arms fair, Defense and Security Equipment International (DSEi), in 2003. As she was stopped, Quinton volunteered her press cards with the hope of being waved on by the police. Instead Metropolitan Police she and Gillan were searched under Section 44 and ordered to stop filming.<\/p>\n

Press freedom isn\u2019t always a high priority for those policing protests, press cards, as any journalist can tell you, are no guarantee of special treatment by the Metropolitan Police. Those that read \u201cNUJ\u201d are taken less seriously by our uniformed friends because \u201canyone can get those\u201d. Despite carrying press cards emblazoned with the logo of a corporate television station, I\u2019ve not only been stopped and searched under Section 44 but also arrested. And charged. And am now due to stand trial this February. For impersonating a police office<\/a>r while dressed in a bra and a boiler suit.<\/p>\n

On other occasions I\u2019ve been hassled by the Metropolitan Police while I\u2019ve been armed with that typical terrorist ruse of a television news crew consisting of me, a reporter, a cameraman and a rather conspicuous satellite truck.<\/p>\n

The Metropolitan Police are yet to issue any new instruction to their officers with respect to today\u2019s ruling. I wonder how many stops and searches have happened since the court\u2019s decision. Because the Home Office have three months within which to appeal, I doubt the general public will see much change in how the police operate.<\/p>\n

Section 44 allows senior officers to designate entire areas of their patch as stop and search zones based on their likelihood of being a terrorism target. Every train station in the UK is covered by a Section 44 order and there are over 100 stop and search zones in London. Because the Home Office is afraid such information might give terrorists ideas, most exact locations of stop and search zones are kept secret. So nobody really knows whether you are in an area covered by Section 44 and whether they are likely to be stopped and searched going about your daily business. Even more invidious has been the way police forces across the UK have used section 44 to target protesters.<\/p>\n

What I want to ask is, by saying they will seek to appeal the ECHR\u2019s decision, what does the Home Office think it knows and who does it seek to control? And to what end? It\u2019s as if, as people living in the UK, it\u2019s assumed we are guilty and have to prove ourselves innocent.<\/p>\n

Leah Borromeo is a foreign and current affairs journalist with nearly 10 years’ experience in television, print and online. She is is awaiting trial for impersonating a police officer at the G20 protests while wearing a black bra and blue boiler suit astride an armoured personnel carrier. While carrying a press card.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Judges decide section 44 violates claimant\u2019s human rights but journalists and protesters are unlikely to see change on the ground says Leah Borromeo<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[4,581,21],"tags":[643,37,283],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7063"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7063"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83887,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7063\/revisions\/83887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}