Terrorist Asset-Freezing (Temporary Provisions) Bill

The hon. Gentleman has a point. I assume, and hope, that while A and K might have disappeared in the eyes of their solicitors and the judges, they have not disappeared in the eyes of the police and security services. Perhaps the Minister can clarify that point later. It would be a perverse reaction to the orders for A and K to disappear without trace. What was the basis of the orders? As we have established, they were introduced under section 1 of the United Nations Act 1946, which was enacted to enable the implementation of the UN charter and Security Council resolutions. Measures under section 1 of the Act are introduced by Orders in Council, so there is no primary legislation or secondary legislation under either the affirmative or the less onerous negative procedure. So those fundamental breaches of human rights were put into force by the Executive—the Government—and not by Parliament. The Supreme Court has ruled that the orders go beyond what is required to implement the relevant Security Council resolution and are therefore ultra vires, but how did they go beyond the resolution? It was because of the reasonable suspicion test. Article 4(2) of the Terrorism (United Nations Measures) Order 2006 states:"““The conditions are that the Treasury have reasonable grounds for suspecting that the person is or may be—""(a) a person who commits, attempts to commit, participates in or facilitates the commission of acts of terrorism””." The Court took the view that these provisions exceed the powers given to the Treasury under section 1 of the 1946 Act. In paragraph 61 of his judgment, Lord Hope said:"““I would hold that, by introducing the reasonable suspicion test as a means of giving effect to””" resolution 1373,"““the Treasury exceeded their powers under section 1(1) of the 1946 Act. This is a clear example of an attempt to adversely affect the basic rights of the citizen without the clear authority of Parliament””"