This news did appear like a bolt from the blue, certainly as far as I was concerned although the proposed law had been, apparently published as a Bill sometime last year.
Perhaps you had taken the chance to visit far away places during the Independence week and therefore missed the Sunday Standard’s report which spelt out in disturbing detail the central elements of this new legislation. Courts may not, for instance, question the grounds for declaring a person to be a terrorist; anyone who knowingly becomes a member of a terrorist group may be imprisoned for life; an investigating officer may, without a warrant, arrest anyone who he suspects is likely to commit an offence; similarly such officers may apply to the courts to tap into private phone conversations; a person who fails to report someone suspected of terrorism may be imprisoned for five years; trials for an offence under the Act shall be held behind closed doors. And so on. The report concludes with the comment from the Minister of Defence, Justice and Security that the government may decide to establish a new agency, in addition to the DIS, to implement the provisions of the Act which, says the Standard, ‘were ‘passed hastily without input from M.P.s during the last session of Parliament.’ Yet another agency and at what vast unregulated cost!
