Stop and Search Under the Terrorism Act 2000: A Comment on R (Gillan) v Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis
| Date | 01 July 2007 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.2007.00646_1.x |
| Published date | 01 July 2007 |
| Author | Daniel Moeckli |
where the CPS is asked to advise) and will depend on the integrity and intelli-
gence with which such polic ies are applied. Ensuri ng that forces apply policy
statements appropriately will depend on HMI and Home O⁄ce scrutiny. The
promulgation by the Home O⁄ce of an overarching Circular dealing with the
system ofdiversions as, essentially, an administrative Code might be helpful both
to set broad policy and to eliminate the inconsistencies which themajority of the
Court perceived in Mondelly. Such a Code might conduce tobetter administration
of the diversion schemes with which it dealt and encourage control by way of
judicialreview at themargin. But whether we will see the emergence of anything
like the Codes under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, which have
done so much to regulate the use of police powers remains to be seen. And the
Courts, alas, have opted out.
Stop and Search Under theTerrorism Act 2000: A
Comment on R (Gillan) vCommissioner of Police
for the Metropolis
Daniel Moeckli
n
INTRODUCTION
In the ¢ve years since the attacks of11September 2001, lawenforcement agencies
have been granted ever more special powers to counter terrorism. To name but a
few examples, whilst the Terrorism Act 2000 had already created a power to
authorise police o⁄cers to carry out blanket stop and searches,
1
since 2001 such
authorisations have been made on an unprecedented scale;
2
the Anti-Terrorism,
Crime and SecurityAct 2001has introduced newpowers of theTreasury to freeze
terroristfu nds;
3
the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 has given the Home Secre-
tary the authority to impose so-called ‘control orders’ on terrorist suspects;
4
and the Terrorism Act 2006 has given the police the power to detain terrorist
suspects for up to 28 days.
5
Since, as the head of theAnti-Terrorist Branch of the
n
Schoolof Law,Universityof Nottingham. I amgrateful to Conor Gearty and ColinWarbrick for (re-)
sparking my interest in the Gillan case and to Sangeeta Shah andTufyal Choudhury for their helpful
comments and advice.
1 Terrorism Act 2000, s 44.
2 Lord Carlile of Berriew, Report on the Operationin 2004 of theTerrorismAct 2000, 24, at http://security.
homeo⁄ce.gov.uk/news-publications/publication-se arch/independent-reviews/Terrorism_Act_Report1.
pdf?view=Binary (last visited 15March 2007).
3 Anti-Terrorism, Crime and SecurityAct 2001, ss 4^16.
4 Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, ss 1^2.
5 TerrorismAct 2006, s 23 in conjunction withTerrorism Act 2000, Sched 8.
Daniel Moeckli
659
r2007 The Author.Journal Compilation r2007 The Modern Law ReviewLimited.
(2007) 70(4)MLR 654^679
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