Surveillance and legal privilege

[Nicholas Bohm]

Peter Tomlinson wrote:
> Nicholas Bohm wrote:
>> 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
>>   
> That is in para 119 of 120. Nicholas, can you help by telling us (a)
> what you think will happen next, and (b) is this judgement strong enough
> to change govt's attitude to and/or stop the surveillance?

Eventually, especially if there's parliamentary agitation, they'll get
round to doing the paperwork;  meanwhile nothing will change.  Perhaps
lawyers will start to pack their briefcases with white noise generators.

Nicholas
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