I have been thinking more about Judicial Reviews and Complaints to the Parliamentary Ombudsman with regards the Home Office and Information Commissioner's Office.
Judicial Review
My understanding of the
guidance notes is that due to the ICO and HO both issuing public statements we may be able to question the procedures they followed in developing and delivering the statements.
Home Office
As we know the Home Office released a statement regarding Phorm and RIPA but in it they stated the statement was neither a legal or technical analysis and that no such analysis had been done. it is reasonable to assume that the general public would see a Home Office statement as one of authority, which is (I presume) why Nicholas Bohm/FIPR sent the letter to the Home Secretary asking for the statement to be withdrawn. It is my belief that the Home Office as a result of this statement have not followed adequate procedures in order to develop the statement (as in they have no investigated the matter in either a technical or legal respect), so I believe a Judicial Review may be possible.
ICO
ICO, in their statement have claimed that Phorm does not breach the Data Protection Act but have also stated that they have not carried out any investigation and have based their judgement purely on information provided to the by Phorm. It is my view that ICO have not complied with Due Dilligence (which is procedural by definition) by not carrying out an investigation. Therefore, again I believe they might be open to a Judicial Review.
Parliamentary Ombudsman
Parliamentary Ombudsman is a road I am currently heading down. I intend to fire off a letter to my MP next week once my schedule has quietened down a little and should my grievances not be satisfied I am planning to go forward with a full complaint to the Parliamentary Ombudsman with regards the lack of action by ICO, Home Office and the Police on the issue of the covert 2006/2007 trials.
I will look into the procedures some more this evening if I get a chance, but I suspect this option is one we should all consider as the more complaint the Parliamentary Ombudsman get, the more likely they are to deal with the matter in a serious fashion.
I have emailed Nicholas Bohm for some more information on the Judicial Review process and whether or not he feels it is a suitable course of action, so I will update once I hear back from him.
Alexander Hanff