Terrorism Act 2000 amended, with new offences, with prison penalties - by Order - no proper Parliamentary scrutiny
The Labour Government have sneaked through an Order (i.e. without any proper Parliamentary scrutiny or the ability to vote on any amendments) which increases the complexity of the controversial Terrorism Act 2000 (and the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002), and which creates new criminal offences, punishable by fines (up to level 5 i.e. £5000) or up to 3 months in prison for "tipping off" offences:
Statutory Instrument 2007 No. 3398 - Terrorism Act 2000 and Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Amendment) Regulations 2007 which come into force on 26th December 2007.
Why are brand new criminal offences, punishable by prison, allowed to magically appear without any actual Parliamentary debate or scrutiny ?
The stigma of being accused, or being falsely accused and not charged, let alone actually being convicted of even a minor offence under the Terrorism Act 2000, is in itself a massive punishment, which will never be expunged, under current practice, from criminal and national security intelligence databases, not just in the UK but worldwide.
Why could these amendments not have waited a couple of months to be included in the forthcoming Counter Terrorism Bill, where they could, in theory, have been properly examined and debated and, perhaps improved by Opposition amendments ?