JUDGMENT
1. On 6th November 2014 the Tribunal held a directions hearing in public principally to
deal with requests for further information made by the Claimants about the
Respondents’ Closed Response Addressing the Legal and Policy Regime.
2. The context of this hearing is that there is to be a substantive hearing, on a date to be
fixed, of an issue, the terms of which have been agreed between the parties. That
issue is framed in following terms:
“On the hypothetical assumption (the true position being neither confirmed nor
denied) that the Claimants’ legally privileged materials have been intercepted by the
Respondents and/or have been obtained by the Respondents as part of their
intelligence sharing regime:
1. Is the regime for the interception/obtaining, analysis, use, disclosure and
destruction of legally privileged material prescribed by law for the
purposes of Article 8(2) of the ECHR ?
2. Has this been the case since January 2010 ?”
3. In preparation for the determination of that issue the Respondents have served an
open Response addressing the legal and policy regime which is to be the subject of
the issues. They have also served a summary of the closed Response submitted to the
Tribunal which gives more information about that legal and policy regime. The first
to eighth Claimants served a request for further information about that summary. In
response to that request some further information and documents have been
provided, but the Claimants argue that more is required.
4. The jurisdiction of the Tribunal to hear and determine these proceedings is derived
from section 67 (1) (a) of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. Section 69
(1) gives power to the Secretary of State to make rules regulating the exercise of the
Tribunal’s jurisdiction. In making rules the Secretary of State is required by section
69 (6) to have regard in particular both to the need to secure that proceedings
brought before the Tribunal are properly heard and considered, and to the need to
secure that information is not disclosed to an extent or in a manner that is contrary
to the public interest or prejudicial to national security, the prevention or detection of
serious crime, the economic well-being of the United Kingdom or the continued
discharge of the functions of any of the intelligence interests.
5. Under Rule 6 of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal Rules 2000 (“the Rules”), the
Tribunal is required “to carry out its functions in such a way as to secure that
information is not disclosed to an extent, or in a manner, that is contrary to the public
interest or prejudicial to national security, the prevention or detection of serious