The Newspaper Society and the Society of Editors have responded to a Home Office consultation on a review of the Police & Criminal Evidence Act 1984, urging retention of provisions in the Act that give some protection for journalistic material from search and seizure.

The NS response queried the need for any revision of the search and seizure provisions.

And it warned: “Any diminution of the present safeguards in the Act would in our view raise serious issues not only in relation to other existing protection in law for the confidentiality of journalists’ sources, but also in respect of possible engagement of Articles 8 and 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights.”

The NS submission said that Jack Straw, when Home Secretary, had given an undertaking that the Home Office would consult the Society and other media organisations at an early stage when proposals which might impact upon the press were under consideration.

But no such intimation was given by the Home Office in relation to the present review, and the Newspaper Society has urged that specific consultation with the media should take place if there was any possibility of the PACE provisions affecting journalistic material being the subject of further consideration.

Society executives have offered to meet Home Office officials to “explain in more detail the importance of the journalistic safeguards and indeed ways in which they could be strengthened to protect press freedom”.

The Society of Editors, meanwhile, believes that no review is needed.

Its response to the consultation said: “The society would be alarmed if the Government were to propose any changes that could reduce such protection as the current PACE provisions do afford, whether or not that was the intention of any such proposals.

“There has been no previous suggestion in the course of any of the society’s various and continuing discussions with the Home Office, ACPO, CPS, judiciary, ministers and officials that the PACE special provisions require review and revision.

“No information has been put forward in the consultation paper as to the evidential basis for any such review.

“We fear that the phrasing of the statement suggests that the Home Office may well be contemplating measures that could lead to an increase in police powers of access, but consequent reduction of the protection of the individual and material currently safeguarded by those special provisions.” Do you have a story about the regional press?
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