‘On 31 July, the final day of Trinity term, and so of the legal year, there was published by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal an OPEN judgment in a case entitled A Complainant v The Secret Intelligence Service (“the MI6 case”). In recent years the IPT has become a much more visible contributor to the legal landscape, and its judgments are often the best source of information about the law applicable to the work of the security and intelligence agencies (“SIAs”), and to other bodies enjoying access to powers of surveillance etc. This judgment, however, was notably laconic. It informed the reader that the Tribunal had ruled on “an issue of law” regarding the powers conferred on the Secret Intelligence Service (“MI6”) by section 1(1) of the Intelligence Services Act 1994 (the short statute which first gave MI6 a statutory basis and which governs it to this day). It had ruled, the judgment stated in its sole substantive paragraph, that the provision in question “conferred on SIS the vires to engage in the tasks necessary to fulfil the functions specified in the subsection (1)(a) and (b)… irrespective of whether those tasks took place in the United Kingdom or overseas.” This post considers some of the background to, and possible implications of, this recognition of what we might label MI6’s “functional vires”.’
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UK Constitutional Law Association Blog, 9th September 2025
Source: ukconstitutionallaw.org
