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UK Government Faces Lawsuit Over Emergency Surveillance Bill

Posted by Unknown on from the spilled-some-state-oppression dept.

judgecorp (778838) writes The British Government has had to produce an emergency surveillance Bill after the European Court of Justice ruled that European rules on retaining metadata were illegal. That Bill has now been passed by the House of Commons with almost no debate, and will become law if approved by the House of Lords. But the so-called DRIP (Data retention and Investigatory Powers) Bill could face a legal challenge: the Open Rights Group (ORG) is fundraising to bring a suit which would argue that blanket data retention is unlawful, so these emergency measures would be no more legal than the ones they replaced.

1 of 44 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Are they forgetting that this is the UK? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    there is no constitution in the UK

    False. It's just not a "written constitution" - IOW it is a body of tradition that everyone recognises, along with certain Acts which are regarded as more important than others (especially relevant when the law conflicts, as normally the later would just cancel out the earlier).

    Consider: If there were no constitution, what would be the legal basis for Parliamentary supremacy?