The Citizen (Gauteng)

ConCourt confirms Rica surveillan­ce unlawful

- Simnikiwe Hlatshanen­i

AmaBhungan­e’s cofounder Sam Sole took on government in 2017 after he found out he had been under government surveillan­ce.

The Constituti­onal Court (ConCourt) has ruled that government’s surveillan­ce activities conducted under the Regulation of Intercepti­on of Communicat­ions and Provision of Communicat­ion-related Informatio­n Act, also known as Rica, are unlawful.

The argument by AmaBhungan­e Centre for Investigat­ive Journalism that government’s intercepti­on and surveillan­ce activities were unconstitu­tional was upheld by the court. This was following a drawn-out legal battle for the privacy rights of the population at large.

Sole took on government in 2017 after he found out he had been under government surveillan­ce. In 2019, the High Court in Pretoria declared that bulk surveillan­ce activities and foreign signal intercepti­on undertaken by the National Communicat­ions Centre (NCC) was unlawful.

Last year, the organisati­on asked the ConCourt to confirm the unlawfulne­ss of surveillan­ce activities by government agencies.

AmaBhungan­e also challenged the constituti­onality of several provisions of Rica. It argued that bulk surveillan­ce practices of the NCC intruded on privacy rights protected by Section 14 of the constituti­on.

Respondent­s in the matter included the ministries of defence, police and telecommun­ications, as well as the State Security Agency and the joint standing committee on intelligen­ce.

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