Here in the UK the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, has announced plans to try terrorist offences without a jury. Trial of serious offences by jury, rather than by a judge sitting alone or a tribunal, is one of the cornerstones of British Justice.
This is bad enough in itself, but there have been a number of high-profile miscarriages of justice associated with terrorism in the UK, as well as a number of high-profile “terrorist” arrests that became media events but generated no criminal charges.
Taken together with the curiously broad definition of terrorism under UK law and the authoritarian and populist instincts of Mr Blunkett himself this all adds up to a rather worrying scenario.
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