MI5 defies EC ruling (1)
01 January 1991
MI5 defies EC ruling
artdoc February=1992
The Security Service Tribunal has confirmed that MI5 is still
holding files on two former workers at the National Council for
Civil Liberties (Liberty) despite a ruling by the European Court
of Human Rights last year that this breached Article 8 of the
European Convention on Human Rights which guarantees respect for
private life. MI5's F branch, responsible for domestic
subversion, opened files on Harriet Harman, now a Labour MP, and
Patricia Hewitt, now with the Institute of Public Policy
Research, when they were respectively the Legal Officer and
General Secretary of NCCL. Liberty wrote to the Security Service
Tribunal, which was set up under the Security Service Act 1989
to investigate complaints, to ask if the files had been
destroyed. It received a series of tortuous letters. The first
letter in July said it intended to treat the complaint as being
that MI5 had `unreasonably' made them the `subject of its
inquiries' since the Security Service Act 1989 came into force
on 18 December 1989. It went on to say that the Tribunal had no
powers to investigate `the assumed continued holding' of personal
information. But when investigating whether inquiries post-
December 1989 were unreasonable it might use its powers under
paragraph 7(2) of Schedule 1 (i.e. to refer for investigation
whether MI5 has in any other respect acted unreasonably) if it
made no determination in favour of the complaints (i.e. if it did
not uphold them). In this case it would ask the Commissioner to
investigate:
whether the Security Service has acted unreasonably
(whether or not in breach of Section 2)... by continuing
(if they do) to hold personal information...
Section 2 of the 1989 Act states that the Director-General of MI5
shall ensure that `no information is obtained' except as
necessary for the discharge of its functions (Section 2(a)). The
functions referred to being the `protection of national security'
from `actions intended to overthrow or undermine parliamentary
democracy by political, industrial or violent means' (Section
1(2)). By October the Tribunal had decided that `no
determination' could be made on the complaints, but that it had
decided to refer the matter outside its jurisdiction - `the
alleged continued holding of personal information' - in breach
of Section 2 to the Commissioner. The letter ends by stating this
decision `carries no implications either way as to whether the
Security Service continued to hold (or ever held) personal
information upon all or any of the complainants'.
Letters from the Security Service Tribunal, 5.7.91 & 18.10.91;
Guardian, 7.12.91.
Statewatch, Volume 2 no 1, January/February 1992