Leading article: Time to dispense with these draconian instruments

A battle is raging in the corridors of power over the future of control orders. On one side are the police, the intelligence services and the Home Secretary, who want to retain the restrictions on foreign terror suspects. On the other side are Lord MacDonald, the former director of public prosecutions, and the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, who want to get rid of the controls.

At this stage it is unclear which side will prevail. The Prime Minister, who will make the ultimate decision, said this week that control orders were "imperfect" and needed to be replaced, but he did not specify with what. There has been talk of a compromise in the form of a watered-down and renamed regime of restrictions.

Control orders, as presently configured, are certainly imperfect, as even some of their supporters recognise. Several suspects subject to the orders have absconded since 2005. Yet the case against control orders is not primarily a practical one. The central offence of the instruments is that they undermine this country's liberal traditions.

Some of the orders are relatively loose, but for a handful of suspects they amount to indefinite house arrest. They restrict who suspects can talk to, where they can go and what they can do. Access to communications is drastically curtailed. Direct ministerial permission is needed before suspects can engage in a whole host of activities.

The impact goes further than the individuals targeted. Control orders effectively restrict the liberty of the families of suspects. This is the sort of state control over individual lives that is more commonly associated with repressive regimes such as Burma and Zimbabwe.

It is important to remember that the individuals in question have not been found guilty of any crime. They are subject to these restrictions on the basis of evidence that they are not allowed to see, let alone challenge. The state could never get away with behaving in this manner towards British nationals.

Supporters of control orders demand to know how their opponents would protect the public from foreigners suspected of plotting terror attacks on Britain. The simple answer is through the same methods used to deal with UK-born terror suspects: assiduous monitoring and evidence-gathering with a view to bringing charges in open court.

Nine individuals are presently subject to control orders in Britain. But the intelligence services and police are believed to be monitoring about 2,000 terror suspects across the UK. It is not credible to suggest that these nine foreign nationals are so much more dangerous than UK-resident terror suspects that they require special treatment from the security services.

We need to recognise these instruments for what they are: a face-saving device, cobbled together after the Law Lords ruled in 2005 that the previous Government's decision to place foreign terror suspects in indefinite detention was illegal. They make the lives of the police and the security services marginally easier. But the price, namely the erosion of our reputation for upholding civil liberties, has been far too high.

Control orders combine the worst of all worlds. They do almost nothing to enhance public safety and yet undermine our reputation as a freedom-respecting nation. Rather than watering down control orders, the Coalition needs to summon up the courage of its professed liberal convictions and simply scrap them. The should be replaced by the investigatory powers of the police and the rule of law.