Following is a partial transcript of the debate in the House of Lords
Lord Waddington: I beg leave to ask the question standing in my name on the order paper.
Lord Waddington: Well I am very grateful to the noble Lord for his reply, but I think he would agree with me would he not that so far the British government hasn’t covered itself with glory in this matter, having abstained rather than supported the Court of Appeals decision that the PMOI was not a terrorist organisation when the matter was before the Council of Ministers some months ago and didn’t the European Court say in its judgement of the 4th December that the British governments excuse for abstaining on that particular occasion namely that they had to vote for either the whole list of terrorist organisations or against the whole list, was wholly spurious and surely we are entitled to expect that from now on the government will see that the judgments of the Court of Appeal and the European Court are observed and that the European Union respects the rule of law.
Lord Mallock-Brown: My noble Lord …. the European Council at that time to determine how business is dealt with of this kind and they indeed gave a whole list and there was no option but to have voted up or down and therefore other terrorist organisations would have been de-listed if we had not abstained.
We constantly review which organisations we believe should be proscribed but I think it is enormously important that our review and the decisions we make and our European partners make are subject to scrutiny by the Courts and whereas in this case it is absolutely clear that the courts have found against now repeatedly, both national courts here and at the EU level have found against our desire to proscribe this organisation I think it enormously important that we accept and respect those judgements.
Lord Waddington: Could the noble Lord explain why if one country is excluded all others are excluded. Surely there is a form of assessment on the merits of each case. What is going on?
Lord Mallock-Brown: You can say that each organisation is individually considered by the working committee that makes advice to the Council of Ministers but then it is the prerogative of the Presidency as to how a vote is taken on the list that then arises out of those discussions. The last Presidency determined that it should be a vote on the list as a whole, the list as a whole should either be adopted by consensus or rejected and it was not possible in the views of the officials involved to demand a vote on individual organisations on the list.
Lord Wedderburn: My Lords, would my noble Lord reassure this House in clear terms and absolutely that every vote cast by her Majesty’s government in future will aim at the removal of the word terrorist from the PMOI.
Lord Mallock-Brown: Let me be very clear that at the end of this month there will be a decision by Ministers at the European level on this issue and let me be equally clear that the UK will both in the working meetings that proceed that decision and at the time of that decision itself urge respect for the decisions of the Courts.
Baroness Turner: Would not my noble Lord agree, that in view of the court decision which effectively removed the PMOI from the terrorist list it would be quite wrong to seek inclusion of the PMOI on the EU’s asset freeze list?
Lord Mallock-Brown: Let me just say that I think the two lists are in this sense linked. The de-listing of the PMOI, the de-proscribing of the PMOI does indeed have knock on effects on the organisation as a whole.
Lord Averbury: When it comes up before the European Ministers at the end of this month, will it be an individual decision on the PMOI and will the government then vote for de-proscription?
Lord Mallock-Brown: Let me be clear that we very much hope in light of the Court decision that when the list arises before Ministers, ideally it would not contain the PMOI on it.