6
LIBERTY AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT
section 2 of the 1985 Act and in accordance with a certificate issued under
section 3(2)(b) of the 1985 Act.
(a) Warrants for interception
(i) The three grounds for issuing a warrant
18. The Secretary of State’s power to issue a warrant under section 2 of
the 1985 Act could be exercised only if he considered the warrant
necessary:
“(a) in the interests of national security;
(b) for the purpose of preventing or detecting serious crime; or
(c) for the purpose of safeguarding the economic well-being of the United
Kingdom.”
19. The term “serious crime” was defined by section 10(3) of the Act as
follows:
“For the purposes of [the 1985 Act], conduct which constitutes or, if it took place in
the United Kingdom, would constitute one or more offences shall be regarded as a
serious crime if, and only if –
(a) it involves the use of violence, results in substantial financial gain or is conduct
by a large number of persons in pursuit of a common purpose; or
(b) the offence, or one of the offences, is an offence for which a person who has
attained the age of twenty-one and has no previous convictions could reasonably be
expected to be sentenced to imprisonment for a term of three years or more.”
20. The scope of the term “national security” was clarified by the
Commissioner appointed under the 1985 Act. In his 1986 report he stated
(§ 27) that he had adopted the following definition: activities “which
threaten the safety or well-being of the State, and which are intended to
undermine or overthrow Parliamentary democracy by political, industrial or
violent means”.
21. In determining whether a warrant was necessary for one of the three
reasons set out in section 2(2) of the 1985 Act, the Secretary of State was
under a duty to take into account whether the information which it was
considered necessary to acquire could reasonably be acquired by other
means (section 2(3)). In addition, warrants to safeguard the economic wellbeing of the United Kingdom could not be issued unless the information to
be acquired related to the acts or intentions of persons outside the British
Islands (section 2(4)). A warrant required the person to whom it was
addressed to intercept, in the course of their transmission by post or by
means of a public telecommunications system, such communications as
were described in the warrant.