Kate Wilson

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.