ConCourt confirms Rica surveillance unlawful
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.