The Prime Minister has approved the appointment of The Right Honourable Sir Stanley Burnton as Interception of Communications Commissioner under the terms of Section 57 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. This appointment will take effect from 4 November 2015.
Biographical notes
Sir Stanley Burnton (72) was called to the Bar by Middle Temple in 1965. He took Silk in 1982 and became a Bencher in 1991. He served as a Recorder from 1994 to 2000, when he was appointed as a Justice of the High Court, assigned to the Queen’s Bench Division. He was promoted to the Court of Appeal in 2008 and retired from the Bench in 2012. He is the President of the Slynn Foundation, a trustee of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law and the Chairman of the British and Irish Legal Information Institute.
Notes for editors
Section 57 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 provides for the Prime Minister to appoint an Interception of Communications Commissioner who must be a person who holds or has held high judicial office (within the meaning of Part 3 of the CRA 2005) or is or has been a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
The responsibility of the Commissioner is to keep under review the issue of interception warrants and the adequacy of the arrangements for ensuring the product of interception is properly handled.
The Commissioner is also responsible for overseeing the interception of prisoners’ communications in establishments in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (on a non-statutory basis) and keeping under review directions issued by the Secretary of State under Section 94 of the Telecommunications Act 1984 (also on a non-statutory basis).
The Commissioner is under a duty to report on his work to the Prime Minister on a 6-month basis.