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In a rul­ing handed down today by the Inves­ti­ga­tory Pow­ers Tri­bunal (IPT) in the United King­dom, the IPT has con­firmed that the com­mu­ni­ca­tions of the Legal Resources Cen­tre have been sub­ject to unlaw­ful inter­cep­tion by the British Gov­ern­ment Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Head­quar­ters (GCHQ) in vio­la­tion of the laws gov­ern­ing such sur­veil­lance. The rul­ing con­firmed that the com­mu­ni­ca­tions of the Egypt­ian Ini­tia­tive for Per­sonal Rights were also sub­ject to unlaw­ful inter­cep­tion.

Accord­ing to the rul­ing, com­mu­ni­ca­tions from an email address asso­ci­ated with the Legal Resources Cen­tre were inter­cepted and selected for exam­i­na­tion by GCHQ in breach of GCHQ’s inter­nal poli­cies for the selec­tion of com­mu­ni­ca­tions for exam­i­na­tion. Con­se­quently, the rul­ing holds that there has been a breach of the Legal Resources Centre’s rights in terms of article 8 of the Euro­pean Con­ven­tion on Human Rights.

Although the rul­ing goes on to hold that no use was made of the inter­cepted mate­r­ial and that the Legal Resources Cen­tre, “has not suf­fered mate­r­ial detri­ment, dam­age or prej­u­dice”, the mere fact that com­mu­ni­ca­tions were unlaw­fully inter­cepted – infor­ma­tion that may never have come to our knowl­edge had this case not been insti­tuted – is of seri­ous con­cern.

In view of the veil of secrecy under which the intel­li­gence ser­vices oper­ate, we are left in the dark as to which com­mu­ni­ca­tions were inter­cepted, the extent that this occurred, on whose author­ity this was per­mit­ted, and the rea­sons for this hav­ing being done. In addi­tion, we are left unin­formed about the par­tic­u­lar pro­vi­sions of GCHQ’s inter­nal poli­cies that were breached.

While there has been grow­ing con­cern for some time that pub­lic inter­est organ­i­sa­tions have been sub­jected to sur­veil­lance, the Legal Resources Cen­tre is deeply alarmed by the import of the IPT’s rul­ing. This rul­ing reveals how inva­sive sur­veil­lance oper­a­tions have become and con­firms a seri­ous breach of the rights both of the organ­i­sa­tion and the indi­vid­u­als whose com­mu­ni­ca­tions have been inter­cepted.

Imme­di­ate action will be taken to try to obtain fur­ther infor­ma­tion. We urge both the South African and the British gov­ern­ments to coop­er­ate with us in this regard.

The Legal Resources Cen­tre is indebted to Lib­erty, a UK-based organ­i­sa­tion that has been respon­si­ble for spear­head­ing the lit­i­ga­tion before the IPT, blow­ing the whis­tle and forc­ing a level of over­sight to be exer­cised. The case before the IPT was insti­tuted by a num­ber of pub­lic inter­est organ­i­sa­tions from around the world. See Liberty’s state­ment here.

The IPT ear­lier ruled in this mat­ter that GCHQ’s mass inter­cep­tion of com­mu­ni­ca­tions was com­pat­i­ble with human rights prin­ci­ples, which the par­ties have taken on appeal to the Euro­pean Court of Human Rights.

Extract from the ruling:

In respect of the Sixth Claimant (The Legal Resources Centre, South Africa), the Tribunal has found that communications from an email address associated with the Sixth Claimant were intercepted and selected for examination pursuant to s.8(4) of RIPA.

The Tribunal is satisfied that the interception was lawful and proportionate and that the selection for examination was proportionate, but that the procedure laid down by GCHQ’s internal policies for selection of the communications for examination was in error not followed in this case.

This amounts to “conduct” about which complaint may properly be made under s.65 of RIPA and the fact that there was interception in those circumstances constitutes also a breach of Article 8 ECHR, for the same reason as is set out in paragraph 14 above. Therefore the complaint is upheld and it is declared that that there has been a breach of the Claimant’s Article 8 rights.

The Tribunal is satisfied that no use whatever was made by the intercepting agency of any intercepted material, nor any record retained, and that the Sixth Claimant has not suffered material detriment, damage or prejudice as a result of the breach.

In those circumstances, the Tribunal is satisfied that the foregoing open determination constitutes just satisfaction, so there will be no award of compensation. Since no record was retained, there is no cause for any order for destruction.

Issued by LRC