Relying on hunches

But its own record falls far short of these noble sentiments and not solely because of its contempt for international law regarding the illegal invasion of Iraq.

Just as the US acts as though it has the right to make up international law as it goes along, provided that it cites the phoney "war on terror," the British government feels that it too can dispense with legality in the interests of what it pronounces to be national security.

Its reliance on control orders is, effectively, a means of criminalising suspects without resorting to the justice system.

It is bizarre that, in the midst of the rejoicing over the release of BBC journalist Alan Johnston, who was held without justification by an extremist group, our government should be demanding the right to confine unconvicted and uncharged individuals to indefinite house arrest.

Ministers claim that they have no alternative to using these draconian methods in order to protect our hard-won freedoms.

Equality before the law and a fair trial are principles which cannot be abandoned without undermining the very freedoms that have been built in this country by generations of human rights battles.

None of our democratic rights and freedoms was conceded without being demanded and fought for.

They must not be cast aside on the basis of authoriarianism's well-worn excuse that police or intelligence know that they've got the right people but can't prove it because of a technicality.

Those tempted to fall for this old chestnut should look back at the court cases of the 1970s and '80s when the IRA was planting bombs in England and the combined incompetence of the security forces and legal establishment caused several innocent people to be tortured and locked up for years.

Anyone with unlimited confidence in the ability of the secret services to get in right - even without government manipulation of their findings - should recall the Guildford Four, the Birmingham Six, Maguire Seven and Judy Ward cases.

All pronounced guilty beyond doubt, all backed up by forensic evidence, all given long jail sentences and every single one blameless as charged.

The short cut then of beating and terrorising confessions out of the innocent came back to haunt the international reputation of Britain's justice system.

Today's short cut of giving the courts a body swerve in favour of imposing control orders will have a similar effect.

It will be seen as prioritising expediency over legality. And, above all, it will fall short of the legal norms adopted by the international community, which is why it will be condemned, if it is referred there, by the European Court of Human Rights.

Far better that the Law Lords improve on their record of a previous era and insist that the government respects legal norms.

This means that the police and intelligence services must provide evidence acceptable to a court to secure a guilty verdict and not to rely on hunches or intuition.