The Irish Council for Civil Liberties has won a landmark legal victory in Britain after a court upheld its challenge that the British Investigatory Powers Tribunal should be held in public, writes Sorcha Crowley.
The ICCL was joined in their challenge by Liberty, British-Irish Rights Watch and the Guardian. The tribunal was set up to regulate British police and MI5 surveillance.
The tribunal is investigating ICCL allegations that MI5 mounted "extensive surveillance of telephone calls between Ireland and Northern Ireland and Ireland and the UK in the 1980s".
All future tribunal cases which do not raise issues of "national security" will be heard in public.