Liberty wins key case on telephone tapping and covert surveillance
23 Jan 2003

Redress for unlawful surveillance/phone tapping by police and MI5 finally emerges from the dark

Today the tribunal set up to deal with complaints about unlawful surveillance by the police, MI5 and others quashed rules made by the Home Secretary forcing the tribunal to hold all its hearings in secret. This key judgment on how cases will be handled in future results from a challenge to its procedures by Liberty, the human rights organisation. The challenge to the secret procedures involved three days of legal argument in July 2002: today the Investigatory Powers Tribunal gave its 85-page judgment.

Lord Justice Mummery and Mr Justice Burton, The President and Vice-President of the Tribunal gave a judgement which quashes rules made by the Home Secretary which forced the Tribunal always and in all circumstances to have its hearings in private. In future the Tribunal will be able to hear some parts of some cases in public, allow the complainant and his or lawyers to be present at some hearings and give reasons for its decisions.

John Wadham, Director of Liberty and solicitor for the complainants said today:

"The complaints procedure in these cases has always been hopeless. Since these systems were first set up in 1985 no one has ever had their complaint upheld. However this judgment begins to open up that process to those under surveillance and to the public and hopefully this will lead to improvements.

"The process still remains too secret despite this ruling. Unfortunately it is unlikely that we will see too many other hearings in public."

This case was the first ever to have an oral hearing and today will be the first time the Tribunal has ever sat in public.

The Tribunal itself said:
"The challenge to rule 9(6) and to most of the other rules governing the basic procedures of the Tribunal have made this the most significant case ever to come before the Tribunal. The Tribunal are left in no doubt that their rulings on the legal issues formulated by the parties have potentially important consequences for dealing with and determining these and future proceedings and complaints."

The Tribunal is set up by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 to deal with any legal proceedings against the Security Service (MI5), the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and GCHQ (the government listening centre). It also deals with any complaints about telephone tapping, the use of listening devices or letter opening by those bodies or by the police or customs and excise. It also deals with issues relating to the disclosure of email and communications data, encryption and other surveillance.