A LABOUR MP said: "Tony Blair's government has reversed, in six weeks, principles that have underpinned the UKs legal system for four centuries."

That is somewhat exaggerated but it is true that the new "anti-terrorism" laws, rushed through in December, represent a dangerous assault on civil liberties.

A further repressive measure is being planned the EU Arrest Warrant which would empower EU judges to order that any person in the EU, should be arrested, and then summarily transferred from one EU state to another. Suspicion, which may be founded on rumour, would be enough to justify a warrant.

The present process, whereby a request for arrest and extradition must be backed by evidence, which can then be challenged in a court hearing, would be abolished.

The dangers inherent in this "fast-track" system are surely apparent from the case of Lotfi Raissi, of Colnbrook, Slough, who spent five months in Belmarsh jail, while his lawyers exposed the flaws in the case for his extradition to the USA. Last week, he was released on bail.

If Britain and the USA had previously implemented a "fast-track" extradition system, analogous to the system envisaged for the EU Arrest Warrant, he would have been flown to the USA within hours, or days, solely on the basis of FBI suspicions. We should never allow foreign judges to order the arrest and deportation of people here. Other EU states are, after all, still foreign countries.

Dr D R Cooper

Belmont Park Avenue

Maidenhead