CHAPTER 14: EXPLANATIONS
enforcement purposes, including by means of interception, is not a political
function.
(b)
The capacity of judicial authorisation to allay public suspicions would be
reduced if the Home Secretary were effectively given the power to decide
whether a particular warrant was necessary in the interests of national security.
National security being a term undefined in law, suspicious people (whether or
not with good cause) will always criticise the exercise of that judgement by an
elected politician whose views of what constitutes a national security threat may
not coincide with those of an independent arbiter.
(c)
The Surveillance Commissioners have become accustomed to considering the
national security case for a long-term deployment of undercover police, and told
me that they feel no uneasiness about doing so.
(d)
There are considerable advantages in having a single warrant-granting
authority rather than a dual arrangement. Under my scheme, the Home Office
WGD could cease to exist, though it would be desirable for some of its
resources and considerable expertise to be redeployed in ISIC.
14.68. Centrally important is the requirement that there be arrangements for the prompt
consideration of urgent applications for specific interception warrants from any part
of the UK and at any time (Recommendation 32).
14.69. Recommendation 37, to the effect that serious crime warrants should have the same
6-month duration as national security warrants, responds to the recent comment of
the IOCC that “there remains a strong practical case for increasing the validity period
for serious crime warrants to six months”,61 with which I agree. Requesting authorities
will have to apply effective procedures for the purpose of verifying that warrants
proceed for cancellation once there is no further need them: an aspect that is already
the subject of IOCCO inspections and that ISIC inspectors should also be astute to
check.
14.70. Recommendation 38 removes a pointless distinction between RIPA Parts I and II as
regards the date when warrant renewals take effect, allowing them to do so from with
effect from the expiry of the original warrant as is currently the case under Part II. I
am grateful to the ISCommr for drawing the discrepancy to my attention.
Combined warrants
14.71. Recommendation 39 relates to combined warrants, and is aimed at ensuring the
necessary flexibility to perform interception, intrusive surveillance and property
interference in the course of a single operation: see 10.36 above. It offers
administrative convenience for any intercepting authority that might wish to make use
of them, but does not dilute any protections, since the conditions for each type of
warrant would still have to be satisfied.
61
IOCC Report, March 2015, 6.43.
275