War And Criminal Justice Model

Wilkinson puts forward the view that in a democracy, the main goal of a counterterrorism approach should be to safeguard and upkeep democracy, the rule of law, and its people. He emphasises that these objectives outweigh the need of eradicating terrorism and political violence besides, it also can weaken democratic ideal. “Any bloody tyrant can solve the problem of political violence if he is prepared to sacrifice all considerations of humanity, and to trample down all constitutional and judicial rights.” In countering terrorism, there are two recognised methods namely, the war and criminal justice models. The war model recommends the use of maximum force to reach its objectives, while the latter recommends the rule of law and to use minimum
Pursuit and capture encompass the capturing of suspected wrongdoer, preserving procedural justice, and affirming the presumption of innocence until found guilty. During the course of the pursuit and capture levels, fatal force is minimal to exceptional situations. Only courts can determine on the suspect's culpability and give out punishment to offenders consequently. The three levels, nonetheless, undergo on new dimensions at the time of armed conflict, and are “subject to loose international law norms of necessity and proportionality”. Pursuit may entail the intention to kill, and detention is not established by guilt or innocence but puts a stop to the detainee from engaging in further combat. Hence, the duration of the detention is not decided by the individual’s activities but more on the length of the conflict. In fact, it can be argued that both models discussed above create a one-tier answer to a multi-tier troubles. The criminal justice model is concerned with the after-effects of terrorism - striving to get those at fault to justice; the war model deals with terrorism by using pre-emptive military actions. Counterterrorism strategies formed by the war model undermine or even eliminate the rule of law because they fail to deal with separatism or other forms of rebellion with “due regards to human rights principles, democracy and the rule of law”. Jakobs argues