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Watchdog in UK threatens litigation over proposed law

The British government's own human rights watchdog threatened on Sunday to launch a legal challenge to Labour's plan to introduce a law that would let police detain terror suspects without charge for 42 days.

The UK's Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) says the key part of the counterterrorism bill goes against human rights law and may breach the country's Race Relations Act.

As Home Secretary Jacqui Smith renewed her appeal to Labour backbenchers to support the measure -- in the face of growing international criticism -- the EHRC prepared to brief members of parliament (MPs) before the bill's second reading in the House of Commons tomorrow. The commission makes clear it will mount a legal challenge if the 42-day limit wins parliamentary backing.

"If adopted, we may seek to use our legal powers to challenge the lawfulness of the provisions and to establish clear legal principles on the use of pre-trial detention," the commission says in a briefing note to MPs.

The threat of a legal challenge from the EHRC, which has powers to take judicial review on legislation it considers may be in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights, is another setback to a government determined to increase the time terrorism suspects can be held without charge from 28 to 42 days.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Noam Chomsky and the American Civil Liberties Union have led an international outcry against the plan, which is opposed at home by the Tories and Liberal Democrats.

The government receives a further blow today when Lord Dear, the former chief inspector of constabulary, says a change in law would be a "propaganda coup" for al-Qaeda. In a Guardian article, Dear writes that every chief constable he has spoken to regards the change as unnecessary.

"Make no mistake, extending pre-charge detention would most certainly be a propaganda coup for al-Qaeda and its ilk. When I was an undergraduate reading law at university in the [19]60s, every self-respecting student had a poster of Che Guevara on their wall and knew something of the writings of [Herbert] Marcuse. Both of those terrorist luminaries said repeatedly that the best course for a terrorist was to provoke a government to overreact to a threat by eroding civil liberties, increasing executive powers and diminishing due process by the denial of justice," Dear wrote.

The deep unease about the new measures was underlined by the EHRC, has a specific power to take legal action over potential breaches of the UK's Race Relations Act.

The commission says it accepts that circumstances might arise which make an increase in the 28 day limit on pre-charge detention helpful to the police in obtaining evidence but this should not be at the expense of fundamental human rights.
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