Abuse of power part 4
Once authorisation has been given pursuant to the powers under sections 44-46 then it continues as specified in section 46. The section 44 authorisation has a start and end time. The end time must not be later than 28 days after the day on which the authorisation is given. Once the authorisation is given the person who gives it is to inform the Secretary of State as soon as is reasonably practicable. Unless the Secretary of State confirms the authorisation before the end of the period of 48 hours beginning with the time when it is given the authorisation ceases to have effect at the end of that period, although its cessation does not affect the lawfulness of anything done in reliance on it before the end of that period. The Secretary of State also has powers to reduce the length of the authorisation or cancel it. Similarly the person with authority can renew it (in which case it is treated as a new authorisation).
Whilst the authorisation is current then it gives very wide-ranging powers to constables in uniform. Essentially these are stop and search powers. Within the area to which the authorisation applies the constable can stop vehicles and search the vehicle, the driver and any passenger. In the same way he or she can stop and search pedestrians. Under section 45 these powers can only be used for the purpose of searching for articles of a kind which could be used in connection with terrorism. However the key qualification is that these powers may be exercised whether or not the constable has grounds for suspecting the presence of articles of that kind. In other words although the searches can only be for that reason, the constable does not have to have grounds. This in practice means that anyone who is a pedestrian or who is in a vehicle in an area in respect of which an authorisation is given can be stopped and searched. The potential for abuse is manifest.
Although there have been various instances of conduct which has caused concern about use of these powers, perhaps the most famous is that of Walter Wolfgang, born in June 1923 and a Jewish refugee from Hitler. Mr Wolfgang attended the 2005 Labour Party conference as a visitor and undertook some relatively modest heckling of Jack Straw's speech. Some very large Conference stewards, who to most startled viewers of this on television looked more like a club doormen than political activists, then physically picked up and forcibly removed the little old man (if Mr Wolfgang will forgive me for describing him as such) and took away his security pass. A Labour constituency chairman was also removed for protesting at the way Mr Wolfgang was treated. So far, whilst all of this might have seemed heavy-handed to an observer, there were no legislative implications. However when Mr. Wolfgang attempted to get back into the Labour party conference later the same day, he was briefly held by police under the aforementioned section 44. This use of the Terrorism Act 2000 seemed to most people to be a million miles away from what powers regarding terrorism can have been intended for. However it is far from an isolated instance. For example in another incident 80-year-old John Catt and his daughter Linda (both of good character with no criminal convictions) had their car stopped and searched by the City of London Police under section 44. Apparently this all arose because their vehicle had been spotted near a demonstration even though there was no reasoned basis for supposing they had committed a crime.
No doubt it is always inevitable that honest mistakes will be made. However giving sweeping powers like these, without the sanction of the constable requiring grounds to justify suspicion, is open to abuse. It is no doubt correct that it is important that the ability to search for terrorist items is not hampered by the formal need to produce grounds to do so. That however can only properly be countenanced if the police are always rigorous to ensure that it is only in appropriate situations that such very wide powers are used. There is ground for concern that giving sweeping powers will inevitably lead to them being used in a sweeping fashion beyond the original purpose envisaged.