Snooper’s charter “falls short”

Lawyers have expressed concerns about the impact on lawyer-client confidentiality as a result of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016—the so-called “snooper’s charter”.

The Act, which covers state surveillance, received Royal Assent last month. Both the Law Society and the Bar Council campaigned for legal professional privilege to be given statutory protection in the Act through express recognition of its importance and provisions making it unlawful to deliberately target legally privileged communications.

This was not achieved. However, late amendments to the Bill in the House of Lords introduced “additional safeguards” strengthening requirements to destroy legally privileged material caught by surveillance. Such materials must now be destroyed unless it is in the public interest that they be kept. A code of practice will also be drawn up.

Chantal-Aimée Doerries QC, chairman of the Bar, said: “Despite claims that the Investigatory Powers Act offers new protections for legally privileged material, sadly the Act falls significantly short of what we would consider sufficient to protect this important and fundamental right which underpins the rule of law. 

“We expect that draft codes of practice will be published in due course to give operational guidance to authorities. The Bar Council will scrutinise closely these draft codes, which ultimately must be approved by Parliament.”