Surveillance and legal privilege

[Nicholas Bohm]

The House of Lords has decided that although RIPA can enable lawful
surveillance of privileged communications with lawyers, the current Code
of Practice does not enable this to be done compliantly with the HRA.

www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldjudgmt/jd090311/mce-1.htm

"Having decided not to appeal the Divisional Court’s decision that
surveillance of privileged and private consultations under the present
regime is unlawful, the Secretary of State should have ensured that such
surveillance did not take place or she should have promptly changed the
regime so as to comply with the Divisional Court’s decision. As Lord
Carswell points out, more than a year has elapsed since that decision,
and your Lordships were told that the Secretary of State was not even in
a position to produce a draft regulation embodying the changes to ensure
that such surveillance was carried out legally. Unless no surveillance
of privileged and private consultations has been going on for the past
year in the United Kingdom (which appears most unlikely), this strongly
suggests that the Government has been knowingly sanctioning illegal
surveillance for more than a year. If that is indeed so, to describe
such a state of affairs as “regrettable” strikes me as an understatement."

(LORD NEUBERGER OF ABBOTSBURY)

Nicholas
-- 
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