Commentary on Sections and Schedules Part 1 – Terrorist Asset-Freezing Final designations Section 3 – Notification of final designation
18.Section 3 requires the Treasury to give notice of and publicise any final designations that they make. Subsection (1) requires the Treasury to give written notice of a person’s designation to that person and to take steps to publicise the designation.
19.Under subsection (2), the designation must be publicised generally, unless one of the exceptions in subsection (3) applies, in which case under subsection (4) the Treasury must inform only such persons as they consider appropriate. The conditions in subsection (3) are that the Treasury (a) believe that the designated person is under the age of 18 or (b) consider that disclosure of the designation should be restricted in the interests of national security, for reasons connected with the prevention or detection of serious crime, or in the interests of justice. For example (and this could apply also in relation to an interim designation under section 6 as section 7 has a similar provision for the restriction of notification of interim designations), the Treasury may consider restricting the publication of a person’s designation where they are concerned that a wide publication might have the consequence of revealing the nature or extent of a police or intelligence investigation.
20.Subsection (5) specifies that where the Treasury have publicised a person’s designation to only those persons they consider appropriate because one or more conditions in subsection (3) were met but such conditions subsequently cease to be met, the Treasury must give written notice of that fact to the designated person and take steps to publicise the designation generally.