Court strikes down law allowing State to spy on prisoner-lawyer calls

An amend­ment to the In­ter­cep­tion of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Act, giv­ing law en­force­ment of­fi­cers the au­thor­i­ty to lis­ten in, record and utilise tele­phone com­mu­ni­ca­tions be­tween pris­on­ers and their lawyers, has been de­clared un­con­sti­tu­tion­al.

On Fri­day, High Court Judge Robin Mo­hammed struck down the 2020 amend­ment as he up­held a le­gal chal­lenge from Lyn­don Charles, one of two men await­ing re­tri­al for the mur­der of busi­ness­woman Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man.

In the law­suit, Charles’ lawyers, led by Se­nior Coun­sel Anand Ram­lo­gan, of Free­dom Law Cham­bers, con­tend­ed that the leg­is­la­tion, which on­ly ap­plies le­gal pro­fes­sion­al priv­i­lege to con­ver­sa­tions us­ing ap­proved com­mu­ni­ca­tion de­vices and at des­ig­nat­ed ar­eas with­in the coun­try’s pris­ons, was un­law­ful.