Judgment Approved by the court for handing down.
Davis & Ors v SSHD
Ireland, and it is apparent from the cases cited to us that Member States have different
regimes governing the retention of and access to communications data.
111.
Secondly, we are not persuaded that the fact that the Swedish court has referred the
issue to Luxembourg means that we should do the same. It might just as well be said
on the other side that we should follow our colleagues in Slovenia, Romania, the
Netherlands and Belgium in holding our domestic legislation to be in breach of EU
law without making a reference.
112.
Thirdly, the request is made far too late. DRIPA was enacted on 17 July 2014. These
proceedings were issued on 13 August 2014. Permission for judicial review was
granted on 8 December 2014. If a request was to be made on the grounds that the
judgment in Digital Rights Ireland was so difficult to comprehend that only the CJEU
itself could say what it meant, that application should have been made at an early
stage; certainly not after the conclusion of a two day oral hearing, with the parties
having incurred substantial costs.
113.
Fourthly, and perhaps most importantly of all, DRIPA contains a sunset clause which,
as we have noted, means that the Act will expire on 31st December 2016. The CJEU
typically takes two years or more to answer a question referred to it for a preliminary
ruling. It is most unlikely that an answer to a reference made now would be received
before DRIPA has expired, or (far more probably) has been repealed and replaced by
a new statute. Either way, the answer would have become academic.
Conclusion
114.
The application for judicial review succeeds. The Claimants are entitled to a
declaration that section 1 of the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 is
inconsistent with European Union law in so far as:
a) it does not lay down clear and precise rules providing for access to and use of
communications data retained pursuant to a retention notice to be strictly
restricted to the purpose of preventing and detecting precisely defined serious
offences or of conducting criminal prosecutions relating to such offences; and
b) access to the data is not made dependent on a prior review by a court or an
independent administrative body whose decision limits access to and use of the
data to what is strictly necessary for the purpose of attaining the objective
pursued.
Remedy
115.
On 10 July we sent paragraphs 1-114 above to counsel as a draft judgment and invited
submissions in writing on remedy.
116.
The Secretary of State’s submissions ask us to go no further than a declaration; and to
suspend any order we do make pending appeal. Mr Eadie relies on R(Chester) v
Secretary of State for Justice [2014] AC 271, a challenge to the UK’s ban on voting
by convicted prisoners. The claimants sought to rely inter alia on EU law. Lord
Mance JSC, giving the leading judgment, said that EU law does not incorporate a
right to vote parallel to that recognised by the ECHR. But he added that even if it had,