Scrutiny : third progress report : seventh report of session 2004-05 : report, together with formal minutes and appendices / House of Lords, House of Commons, Joint Committee on Human Rights.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. Joint Committee on Human Rights.
Date:
2005
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Scrutiny : third progress report : seventh report of session 2004-05 : report, together with formal minutes and appendices / House of Lords, House of Commons, Joint Committee on Human Rights. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    out compulsory drug tests on arrest (on pain of criminal penalty) where a person has been arrested for a trigger offence, or any offence where a police officer of the rank of Inspector or above has reason to believe that drugs contributed to the offence; the power in clauses 9 and 10 to require people who test positive on such a test to attend both an initial and a follow-up assessment of their drug misuse, also on pain of criminal penalty; and the power to make “intervention orders” alongside ASBOs, requiring participation in drug treatment programmes or other activities. 3.23 All of these provisions engage the right to respect for private life in Article 8 ECHR. That right includes the right of a person with capacity to refuse treatment, regardless of whether that refusal is in their best interests. We accept the necessity for the criminal justice system to interfere with this right in certain circumstances in the wider interests of the public, for example by imposing bail conditions requiring treatment. On the information currently available to us, however, we have some concerns that these clauses have the potential to interfere with the Article 8 right to refuse treatment even before a person has even been charged with a criminal offence, let alone had the circumstances of their case considered by a court. Our concern is that people who have been compulsorily drug tested on arrest, are then effectively coerced, by threat of criminal sanction, into agreeing to treatment, before being charged with any criminal offence and without any prior judicial authorisation. We draw these matters to the attention of each House.