The Irish Council for Civil Liberties has initiated proceedings in Britain against the British government. The proceedings concern alleged tap ping of telephone calls between Ireland and Britain over the past decade. The ICCL is acting with two other groups.
The ICCL, British-Irish Rights Watch and Liberty have lodged a complaint with a watchdog body recently established in Britain under legislation aimed at protecting privacy rights.
In their submission, the groups claim the British government's interception of private calls was "at no time in accordance with the law". Nor was it "justified as necessary in a democratic society".
The action follows the disclosure two years ago, in a Channel 4 documentary, that the British Ministry of Defence operated an electronic test facility at Capenhurst, Cheshire, which intercepted telephone, fax, e-mail and data communications from Ireland between 1990 and 1997.
The facility has ceased operating. However, the groups said it was likely the government had since continued to intercept private calls using a new Anglo-US monitoring system known as Echelon. This practice, they noted, compromised their capacity to provide legal advice by telephone to clients.
"Each complainant has an active interest from a civil liberties perspective in the activities of the security forces and other public agencies in Northern Ireland and/or the Republic of Ireland," they said.
The submission, which was made to a tribunal established by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Act, 2000, argues that the British security and secret intelligence services were obliged to receive a warrant under this Act in order to conduct such surveillance. It calls for an interim order prohibiting the practice until the tribunal decides on whether authorisation should be granted.
It stresses, however: "There is . . . no factual basis on which any ground for the issue of a warrant could lawfully be established". The tribunal is to set a date for an oral hearing on the matter in the coming weeks.
Mr Donncha O'Connell, director of the ICCL, said that in making the application the groups hoped to accelerate the introduction of new safeguards. "We also hope that the Echelon system is radically changed, made subject to legal controls and, in future, respects the right to private communications," he said.
Last year the same groups applied to the European Court of Human Rights for a declaration that the civil rights of their staff and clients had been breached by the British government's telephone-tapping. The case is due to be heard shortly.
