R A’s Application
| Jurisdiction | Northern Ireland |
| Judge | Girvan J,McCloskey J,Coghlin LJ |
| Judgment Date | 21 September 2010 |
| Neutral Citation | [2010] NIQB 99 |
| Date | 21 September 2010 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Northern Ireland) |
| Year | 2010 |
- 1 -
Neutral Citation No. [2010] NIQB 99
Ref:
GIR7934
Judgment: approved by the Court for handing down Delivered:
21/09/10
(subject to editorial corrections)*
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE IN NORTHERN IRELAND
QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION (JUDICIAL REVIEW)
________
R A’s Application [2010] NIQB 99
IN THE MATTER OF THE JUDICIAL REVIEW APPLICATION BY
R A OF A DECISION TAKEN BY THE POLICE SERVICE
OF NORTHERN IRELAND
Morgan LCJ Girvan LJ and Coghlin LJ
GIRVAN LJ
Introduction
[1]
“Under our tents I’ll play the eavesdropper
To hear if any mean to shrink from me”
Shakespeare: Richard III v. 3
It is unsurprising that amongst the malign characteristics Shakespeare
attributes to Richard III in his entirely negative portrayal were those of an
eavesdropper. In Shakespeare’s time and to this day eavesdropping was and
is regarded as an essentially objectionable invasion of the privacy which
citizens are entitled to expect and a trespass upon the personal space of
individuals who are entitled to be free from prying ears and eyes. The
dangers to the integrity of society and of citizens’ lives from eavesdropping or
in its more modern guise state surveillance were amply demonstrated in the
Fascist and totalitarian regimes of Europe whose egregious abuses of human
rights formed the backdrop to the European Convention on Human Rights
which was designed to prevent the re-emergence of such abuses. The horrors
of the snooping society in Nazi Germany portrayed in Brecht in Fear and
Misery in the Third Reich were with the advances in surveillance equipment
replicated in an even more sophisticated manner in East Germany, a society
in which a culture of all pervasive surveillance destroyed human
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3 cases
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JIH v News Group Newspapers Ltd
...the judges in Northern Ireland in A (A minor) & Others v A health & Social Services Trust [2010] NIQB 108 and R A, Re Judicial Review [2010] NIQB 27. On the other hand, the ECHR did not explain in its judgment in A v United Kingdom why it did not identify the applicant in its judgment dis......
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JXF v York Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
...Another case since Guardian in which anonymity orders have been considered is also from Northern Ireland. It is R A, Re Judicial Review [2010] NIQB 27, in which the court was asked to quash a decision of a District Judge who had refused to extend a reporting restriction in relation to the ......
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Queen v Kernohan (Darren Ivan)
...of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, and this came into force on 25 February 2010. As Girvan LJ observed in RA’s Application [2010] NIQB 99 the 2010 Order has to be read with the contents of the Revised Code of Practice in relation to Covert Surveillance and Property Interference.......