Attorney General demands return of phone tapping warrants

The Attorney General yesterday filed a writ of summons in the Civil Court contesting the validity of a court order on the production of phone tapping warrants as evidence.

Dr Anthony Borg Barthet filed the writ against the head of the security service and the registrar of courts and the 19 men and women charged with drug conspiracy in whose case the order was given last November 13.

The Attorney General declared that the magistrate presiding over the criminal proceedings had ordered the production in evidence of the phone tapping warrants.

The warrants had to indicate the date on which the investigation had commenced in each individual case and each extension to the warrant.

The magistrate had also declared that the court believed that it was impeded from exercising any control over the operations of the security service but that it had to assure the defence counsel and the public that these operations were in observance of the basic principles listed in the constitution.

The Attorney General declared that the law on the security service provided that no evidence could be produced before any court that could suggest that any warrant had been issued or was about to be issued in respect of any individual.

The head of the security service and the Attorney General had filed an application for the Magistrates' Court to overturn its ruling but the order had been confirmed.

Although the head of the security service had resisted obeying the court order, he had eventually complied when he was threatened with the penalties established for contempt of court.

He had then exhibited a substantial number of warrants issued in terms of the law.

The Attorney General declared that the court order and the actions on the part of the head of the security service were clearly in violation of the law and contrary to public order and the public interest.

The Magistrates' Court was not empowered to issue such orders and if the presiding magistrate had any doubt about whether some constitutionally protected right had been violated he could have referred the matter to the Civil Court for a ruling.

The ruling would then have been subject to appeal to the Constitutional Court.

Plaintiff therefore requested the Civil Court to declare that the order issued by the Magistrates' Court was null and void and to order the registrar to immediately return to the head of the security service the warrants exhibited.

The court was also requested to order the head of the security service not to testify on the existence or otherwise of the warrants and to retain the warrants in his possession and not to hand them to any third party.

Attorney General Anthony Borg Barthet signed the writ.