By Tomas Mowlam

The government has today lodged an appeal against the European Court of Human Rights ruling that its use of Section 44 stop and search powers breached human rights.

"There's been an appeal lodged against the European Court of Human rights decision, and that's all we can say at the moment by way of comment" a Home Office spokesman said today.

A senior legal source told The Samosa that the government was appealing because they felt “there was no breach of any Articles of the ECHR, and that the police's actions were proportionate”.

Corinna Ferguson, Legal Officer for Liberty on the original case, said: “This is a misguided attempt to avoid the inevitable. The strong decision issued in January is unlikely to be overturned, but more importantly the concerns highlighted by the Court are shared by the police themselves.

“Instead of procrastinating, whoever is in power after the election should simply tighten up this overbroad law.”

The case brought by Liberty focused on the 2003 stop and search of Kevin Gillian and Pennie Quinton, at the protest against an arms fair at the Excel centre in London’s Docklands.

The European Court ruled in January that the safeguards provided by British law did not “constitute a real curb on the wide powers afforded to the executive, so as to offer the individual adequate protection against arbitrary interference.”

The court added that “there is a clear risk of arbitrariness in the grant of such a broad discretion to the police officer.” Powers under Section 44 were “neither sufficiently circumscribed nor subject to adequate legal safeguards against abuse.”

From the case it emerged that areas as large as Central London were continually designated under Section 44. Statistics also revealed that black and Asian males were far more likely to be stopped and searched.

Since April 2009, London’s Metropolitan Police has reduced its operational use of Section 44.

The government had always maintained it would fight the European Court decision, previously saying: “Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 is an important tool in the package of measures in the ongoing fight against terrorism.”