The Society of Editors says a landmark ruling that the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and Metropolitan Police acted illegally by spying on two Belfast journalists to identify their sources highlights the necessity of additional safeguards to protect journalists and their confidential sources.
The Society was responding to a ruling made yesterday by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) which found that police acted unlawfully and breached the human rights of Northern Ireland journalists Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey when conducting an undercover surveillance operation to identify their sources following a 2018 documentary they had worked on into the 1994 Loughinisland UVF massacre.
The PSNI has been ordered to pay £4,000 to each journalist, the first time the IPT has made a ruling for damages against a police force for unlawful intrusion.
Responding to the ruling, Dawn Alford, executive director of the Society of Editors said yesterday: “Today’s ruling by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal is a huge victory for press freedom and the ability of journalists to pursue stories in the public interest.
“The ruling, while welcome, nonetheless highlights the lack of sufficient safeguards against the police conducting covert surveillance of journalists and we now urgently need additional legislation to protect the rights of journalists and their sources and ensure that this cannot happen again.
“Journalism is not a crime and reporters must be free to properly scrutinise and hold power to account on behalf of the public.”
Yesterday’s ruling came following a six-year fight by the journalists to uncover the extent of police surveillance against them. In a written judgment, the tribunal ruled that former PSNI Chief Constable Sir George Hamilton unlawfully approved an undercover surveillance operation which targeted the two journalists in 2018. Hamilton signed a Directed Surveillance Authorisation (DSA) after being told that an official in the Police Ombudsman’s office was suspected of supplying secret intelligence documents.
The tribunal ruled that the decision to authorise the surveillance operation was “unlawful at common law” and that it violated the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the Human Rights Act 1998. The tribunal also quashed the Directed Surveillance Authorisation.
Read more via The Detail here.
Keep up-to-date with publishing news: sign up here for InPubWeekly, our free weekly e-newsletter.
