JUSTICE : Britain’s Tories Urge Tough Measures on Law and Order

Besides firmly supporting John Major as prime minister, the Conservative Party wants Britain to enact some of the toughest law-and-order measures that this nation has seen in contemporary times.

Receiving a standing ovation at their annual party conference, Home Secretary Michael Howard this week demanded that 27 separate new measures be put into law to deal with what he called “a tidal wave of concern about crime” in Britain.

“In the last 30 years,” Howard declared, “the balance in the criminal justice system has been tilted too far in favor of the criminal and against the protection of the public. The time has come to put that right. I want to make sure that it is the criminals that are frightened, not law-abiding members of the public.”

Political observers said the stern law-and-order position aims to strengthen the Conservative Party’s waning popularity among Britain’s voters under the leadership of Major, who in his speech Friday seconded the tough anti-criminal proposals.

Among the proposals in a wide-ranging criminal justice bill, which is expected to dominate the next session of Parliament, are:

* Tougher restrictions on granting bail.

* More offenses deemed to be terrorism.

* New powers for landlords to evict squatters.

* Calls for more prisons.

* Increased penalties for sex crimes.

* New authority for law enforcement officials to take genetic samples from all suspects.

* A crackdown on young offenders.

* The abolition of the right to silence.

That last measure--affecting the historic right to silence, or more precisely, the right of accused not to have their silence held against them--has stirred the most controversy.

The right to silence has been enshrined in legal codes in most Western democracies, particularly in the United States.

Without it, judges can instruct juries that they should infer that a defendant who fails to offer the police an explanation is guilty.

Defending his proposals, Howard declared that “what is at stake is not the right to refuse to answer questions, but, if a suspect does remain silent, should the prosecution and the judge or magistrate be allowed to comment on it? Should they have the right to take it into account in deciding guilt or innocence?”

The new proposal was praised by Atty. Gen. Sir Nicholas Lyell, who said: “I do not believe this will render the vulnerable suspects unduly vulnerable in the police station. Rather, it will redress the balance against the experienced wrongdoer who can exploit the system unduly to his advantage.”

Hampshire Chief Constable John Hoddinott, chairman of the crime committee of the Assn. of Chief Police Officers, said: “I particularly welcome the prosecution’s right to comment on a defendant’s silence.”

But some legal scholars contested the new proposals.

Rodger Pannone, president of the Law Society, declared: “The right to silence is not an old-fashioned and outmoded tradition. It is one of the cornerstones of our justice system.”

Robert Seabrook, vice chairman of the English Bar, attacked the measure as “misguided,” adding: “It’s contrary to the royal commission’s carefully researched advice and evidence. . . . There’s no evidence that it has much effect on increasing convictions of the guilty and some evidence that it does offer some protection for the innocent and vulnerable.”

In 1929, 1981 and 1993, royal commissions recommended that the right to silence should stay.

Lord Runciman, chairman of the current Royal Commission on Criminal Justice, argued this week that canceling the right could imperil fair treatment of “confused and vulnerable” suspects.

Pam Giddy, an official of Charter 88, a constitutional reform group, said losing it would be a move toward tyranny, adding: “We now join Kuwait, Iran, Iraq and China in not having the right to silence.”

And Paul Boateng, Labor Party law spokesman, commented: “The fundamental premise of British law is that no citizen is required to prove his or her own innocence. It is for the state to prove guilt. These basic rights must not be swept away amidst the self-induced hysteria of a Conservative conference.”