Neutral Citation Number: - Case No: T3/2020/0317

The criterion at paragraph 7(c) is not satisfied unless the authorising officer is satisfied that the potential harm to the public interest from the criminal activity of the agent is outweighed by the benefit to the public interest from the information it is anticipated that the agent may provide and that the benefit is proportionate to the criminal activity in question. [...] The long title to the 1989 Act provides as follows: “An Act to place the Security Service on a statutory basis; to enable certain actions to be taken on the authority of warrants issued by the Secretary of State, with provision for the issue of such warrants to be kept under review by a Commissioner; to establish a procedure for the investigation by a Tribunal or, in some cases, by the Commissione. [...] In dealing with the first issue, the majority of the Tribunal noted the acceptance on behalf of the respondents that the power to do what the Security Service does arises, if Judgment Approved by the court for handing down. [...] 1 of the 1989 Act was not itself the source of any of the Security Service’s powers; and in any event the general wording of the 1989 Act could not be read so as to imply such a power: “It would require language much more specific to indicate Parliament’s intention to confer a power touching, as the policy here does, the principle of legality and the Rule of Law.” 51. [...] We have set out a summary (and we stress it is only a summary) of the respective judgments in the Tribunal as we think it indicates the nature and parameters of the competing views on the central issue of vires: as well as indicating the basis for the (unanimous) reasoning of the Tribunal on the other issues.