Kate Wilson

The paranoia created by the #spycops revelations was vast. The lengths the police were prepared to go to gather material on my political views, the fact it took so long to come to light and only did as a result of activist discoveries, NOT of disciplinary oversight by the state.

#spycops have had a chilling effect on my ability to freely associate and express my beliefs, and not only on mine, but on society at large. It cannot fail to make people afraid to express their views.

There is no justification for this. The police presented no evidence and have not even put forward a case on justification. Any such case, would have to be based on the same arguments that justify Article 8.2 which it has already been admitted was unlawful and disproportionate.

There is no way that it can be said that these #spycops operations breached Article 8 without any justification, but that there was justification for breaching Article 10 and 11. It just cannot work in this case.

The interference with my Article 10 & 11 rights was very serious. Not only my personal and family life but also my political activities were closely monitored and recorded by the state and #spycops for more than 10 years.

That is the end of our submissions on why the #spycops operations were unjustified not only under Article 8.2 HRA (as the police have admitted) but also under article 10.2 and Article 11 because it was explicit, though secret, political policing by the state.

It is our submission that these #spycops operations were not only unlawful because they were disproportionate and deeply intrusive, but also because they were unjustified and unnecessary in a democratic society.

We move on to the final point in our claim, about whether the law governing #spycops operations was adequate to make them compliant with the Human Rights Act at all. This is an interesting point that is very relevant to the CHIS bill going through Parliament in recent months.

The level of authorisation required by RIPA for these extremely intrusive operations, moving #spycops to live in people's homes, were extremely low. Far far lower, for example, than the authorisation required for placing a listening device or bugging a phone.

There was no statute or code of practice prohibiting #spycops from having sexual relationships or even addressing the kind of personal relationships that might occur or the kinds of safeguards that would need to be in place.

Case law Malone v UK (1985): the law must be sufficiently clear to give citizens adequate indication of the circumstances and conditions on which authorities are empowered to use to this secret and potentially dangerous interference with the right to respect for private life

Another straw poll: Who'd have thought that UK law, where uniformed officers need a warrant from a judge to search your garden shed, that all it would need would be the OK from another police officer for them to send #spycops to live in your home and sleep in your bed for years?

The caselaw sets out the kinds of statutes and guidance that should have been in place to make authorisations under RIPA compliant with the HRA. Some of the case law is actually previous rulings from this 10-year claim against #spycops! (how self-referential is that?!)

The caselaw sets out the kinds of statutes and guidance that should have been in place to make authorisations under RIPA compliant with the HRA. Some of the case law is actually previous rulings from this 10-year claim! (how self-referential is that!)

I initially brought this claim in the High Court together with @JustLisa2010. The police got this, and another claim by @tombfowler and others struck out and sent to the IPT. It is that ruling that the Court are looking at now.

It should not be forgotten that @metpoliceuk used every shitty tactic to delay & deny our right to have these claims heard. I'm the only woman deceived into relationships by #spycops to get any answers or access to my files so far, and it has taken 10 awful years of legal fight.

Our point, back in 2014 was that CHIS the authorisation process placed it very low on the hierarchy of intrusion as establised by RIPA, where an authorisation for the tapping of a telephone requires the approval of the Secretary of State.

The Judges have to decide whether there is sufficient clarity in RIPA to meet the legal requirement of "forseeability". they seem unclear whether they can really make their own decision about this. Isn't that the job of Parliament and the Secretary of State?

The perfectly obvious point being made is that CHIS is an extremely intrusive form of surveillance, and in this case it even involved a sexual relationship. That fact was not made sufficiently clear or forseeable by the law governing #spycops.

One of the problems with CHIS law is that the majority of the authorisations under RIPA are for low-grade informants who are not employees of the state. But the only actual limiting feature on the use of #spycops is the intrusion must be necessary and proportionate to the aims.

The law has to protect against arbitrary intrusion into people's private lives, and provide make it forseeable what kinds of intrusion citizens might be subject to.

RIPA includes an enormous breadth and scope of provisions. #spycops require a low level of oversight, low ranks required to authorise, many circumstances in which they can be used, and covered a hugely wide range of types of relationships and a vast range of public bodies.

As such it does not provide sufficient clarity to offer adequate protection against arbitrary and abusive use of interference and surveillance that took place in the #spycops case.

A citizen looking at RIPA powers sees a hierarchy, and the most intrusive surveillance (listening devices) required stringent controls. So much less is required for #spycops. It is not conceivable that the level of intrusion and situations we encountered could have been foreseen.

There is no disputing in this case that there was a problem with the legislation on #spycops because they have had to fix it. RIPA levels of authorisation for CHIS had to be changed in 2013, and it is not even clear that the new regime meets the required levels of forseeability.

The judge notes whatever the law says, it is admitted that what happened here was unlawful. But, that is not the point. There's a link between what went wrong and how slack the law was. If it were more stringent (like for phone tapping) these abuses would not have been possible.