The news media are busy parroting, almost word for word, the UK Government Press Release regarding this Sunday 1st January 2006 commencement of the controversial Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 Section 110 Powers of arrest
When these powers come into force, a Police Constable will be able to arrest you without a warrant, for any offence, for vague "catch all" reasons such as Section 110 (5) (e):
"(e) to allow the prompt and effective investigation of the offence or of the conduct of the person in question;
This power of arrest is subject only to his or her "reasonable grounds for suspecting", something which must inevitably lead to inconsistent and arbitrary justice.
Remember that in the UK, any arrest nowadays involves fingerprinting, photography and DNA samples, which are taken and retained indefinately, no matter whether you are ever charged with any crime, and even if you are found not guilty.
However, we suspect "Yet Another Home Office Error" might make all Arrests under Section 110 illegal, simply because Section 110 of the Act has still not yet been brought into force by Order or Statutory Instrument.
Please correct us if we are wrong in our reasoning below:
UPDATE: The "missing" Statutory Instrument 3495 turned up on the Office of Public Sector Information website late on Thursday 29th December 2005 i.e. 11 days after the SI was signed. It is unclear if the delay was at OPSI, who claim to try to publish online within 24 hours, or at the Home Office.
The nearest SI that we can find online is:
Statutory Instrument 2005 No. 3389
The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (Powers of Arrest) (Consequential Amendments) Order 2005
Made 7th December 2005
Laid before Parliament 8th December 2005
Coming into force 1 January 2006
EXPLANATORY NOTE(This note is not part of the Order)
Section 110 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 ("the 2005 Act") inserts a new section 24 into the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. The new section 24 removes the distinction between criminal offences which are arrestable and those which are not and provides that a constable may, provided certain criteria are met, arrest a person in relation to any criminal offence.
Section 111 of, and Schedule 7 to, the 2005 Act make a number of consequential amendments to primary legislation and repeal those powers of arrest which are not contained within PACE and which apply to constables.
This Order makes equivalent consequential amendments to secondary legislation.
Neither this Statutory Instrument nor any of the others appears to set a Commencement Date for Section 110 , or Section 111 or the long list of repeals wihich involve the words "arrest" or "arrestable" in Schedule 7 either:
- Statutory Instrument 2005 No. 1521
The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (Commencement No. 1, Transitional and Transitory Provisions) Order 2005
Made 7th June 2005
- Statutory Instrument 2005 No. 2026
The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (Commencement No. 2) Order 2005
Made 20th July 2005
- Statutory Instrument 2005 No. 3136
The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (Commencement No.3) Order 2005
Made 9th November 2005
- Statutory Instrument 2005 No. 1537
The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (Designated Area) Order 2005
Made 8th June 2005
Laid before Parliament 10th June 2005
Coming into force 1st July 2005
- Statutory Instrument 2005 No. 3447
The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (Designated Sites) Order 2005
Made 14th December 2005
Laid before Parliament 19th December 2005
Coming into force 1st April 2006 - Scottish Statutory Instrument 2005 No. 358 (C.15)
The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (Commencement No. 1) (Scotland) Order 2005
Made 20th June 2005
- Draft Statutory Instrument 2005 No.
The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (Codes of Practice) Order 2005
Made 2005
Coming into force 1st January 2006
There is no wording in the text of SOCPA which treats Sections 110 , 111 and Schedule 7 any differently from the other Sections and Schedules, i.e. there is no specific Commencement Date written "on the face of the Act", as the SIs above show, the Sections have been brought into force piecemeal, by Order.
So, unless there is a last minute SI which has not appeared online then the Section 110 powers will still not yet apply, starting on 1st January 2006.
The Police and Criminal Evidence (PACE) Code G, which deals with the procedures for using these new powers of arrest does come into force on Sunday, but has no Statutory basis, until SOCPA Section 110 comes into play and repeals and amends the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 as intended.
For any such Statutory Instrument to be issued and "laid before Parliament", before Sunday, this must surely require an emergency recall of Parliament ?
It will be interesting to see if the rule of law, as laid down and approved by Parliament prevails, or whether the NuLabour Government attempts to use some sort of administrative trick or just propaganda and spin, to pretend that the new Section 110 powers are legal as of Sunday.
We would welcome any expert legal opinion as to why our chain of reasoning above is wrong..
Given the apparent lack of training which most Policemen have received about these new powers, there could well be some miscarriages of justice, with innocent people being wrongfully arrested, and with guilty offenders getting let off on appeal beacause of an unlawful arrest procedure.
The home office should create one simple single bill: "Our new powers" and just amend it every two weeks when Charlie comes up with another bright idea. I also believe the Labour party should introduce pre-policy voting for whenever there is a threat of terrorism. Better yet, they should avoid parliament altogether on national security legislation, as with the number plate database. I'd feel much safer if all that happened.
Please do that Charlie. I'm a moron that can't think for myself and need to be watched every day in case I decide to blow myself and others up. I intend to make occassional journeys to my local terrorist network group at Westminster and will always make funny faces at police men, including what I like to call my "How'd they get elected face". Please record all my web habits because I might be trying to access forbidden material like terrorist videos or information on how to make bomb or the Aljazeera tv network.
Its vital to me you can recognise me in a crowd so I will always try and stare at the CCTV everywhere I go for a good few seconds so your machine can match me to its database and I'll remember not to smile to make it really easy for you. I welcome the police into my house and I'm happy to be stopped while out walking or driving at any time day or night to give fingerprint and DNA samples. If you want to read my personal emails just ask and I'll happily hand over my PGP keys and give you a list of my contacts and where they can be found. You are also welcome to open my post - just try and reseal it convincingly.
I'm eagerly awaiting my chance to get my iris and fingerprints scanned and added to your ID card database. A technical masterpiece that will really make us safer and will stop all the nasty criminals and terrorists from - erm - doing what it is they do. I'd be really thrilled if you'd listen in on my phonecalls, and I'll always carry my mobile around so you know where I am. In pubs and restaurants I'll locate near the cameras and mics, and in public buildings I'll always try to stay near the protecting cameras.
I think this means they flipped the switch on 7th December:
http://www.uk-legislation.hmso.gov.uk/si/si2005/20053389.htm
@ John - SI3389 does not set the Commencement Date for Section 110 of SOCPA !
It does mention Section 110 in the Explanatory Notes, but these are not legally part of the Order.
The obscure trade sanctions secondary legislation mentioned in SI3389 does Commence on 1st of January 2006, but the vast majority of "non arrestable offences" which would be covered by the Section 110, Section 111 and Schedule 7 repeals and amendment to create a new Section 24 in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, and to amend dozens of other bits of primary legislation, are not.
e.g. offences under parts of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 or dropping litter etc.
None of the 5 other Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 "Commencement Order" Statutory Instruments do so either !
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/12/29/narrest29.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/12/29/ixnewstop.html
Police are to be given new powers of arrest as per this article and if true, will send shock waves throughout the world.
This is a really scary one.
I had a look at Section 110, but by being modifications of previous acts, these texts are very hard to read.
Do you know how long they can keep you in when arrested under Section 110?
Also does Section 18(1) of PACE applies in all cases of arrests under Section 110 as it applies under the infamous Section 44? Ie can they also search the flats of those arrested without the need of a warrant? (That's the powers they used in my case.)
I started compiling a list at http://gizmonaut.net/bits/police_state.html but it would need more time and research to be really comprehensive. I was hoping to be able to take bullet points out, not to have to add new ones.
How many more wrongful arrests will we need before there's enough pressure to improve our laws?
br -d
Found a few more answers at http://worldwearydetective.blogspot.com/2005/12/death-of-liberty-in-britain.html
br -d
Dont worry - the sky is not falling. The police now have no more power than they did before. Last week they could still arrest you for any offence, be it littering or running red traffic lights - under section 25 PACE. They have just taken s25 and included it into s24, and imposed the same conditions as would be considered beforehand. To stop those nasty policemen from searching your home following your arrest for driving without a seatbelt, s18 PACE has also been sutibly amended to cover only indictable offences. In practise, police powers have weakened because they now need to justify the arrest of someone who has just murdered you. I agree however, the training is shoddy. I was given a 20 minute power point to study on the 19th of December..