In Ex p B [1996] 1 AC, Lord Taylor CJ said: 'A client must be sure that what he tells his lawyer in confidence will never be revealed without his consent .

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it is a fundamental condition on which the administration of justice as a whole rests.' Now the government proposes to violate that privilege by means of the Police Bill.

Only belatedly, on 16 January as this article was going to press, has the Labour party b een shamed into opposing the provisions of the Bill.

These will permit police to break into solicitors' offices, go through clients' papers copying what they want, plant bugs to listen into conversations and then, if they wish, use any information they gather as evidence in later proceedings.

The Lords debate the Bill this week and we are informed that the Lord Chief Justice will add his support to growing demands for curbs on these proposed police powers.Under the Bill, a chief constable will be able to authorise 'the taking of such action, in respect of such property or in respect of wireless telegraphy, as he may specify' where he thinks it necessary on the ground that 'it is likely to be of substantial value in the prevention or detection of serious crime'.

'Serious crime' is defined as an offence which 'involves the use of violence, results in substantial gain or is conduct by a large number of persons in pursuit of a common purpose' or an offence carrying a prison term of three years or more on first conviction.

The purpose of the Bill is to place the use of electronic surveillance, hitherto subject only to Home Office guidelines, on a statutory footing.

Such surveillance took place on 1300 occasions in 1995.Two fundamental rights are at stake.

The first is, as Lord Browne-Wilkinson said during the second reading debate on the Police Bill, that: 'Until now, the only right now enjoyed by the state to invade property is under the warrant of a court .

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our freedom depends, and depends only, on the fact that no minister, no member of the police, has any greater power or right than any other citizen to enter our property.' The second is the importance and inviolability of legal professional privilege as reasserted by Ex p B [1996] 1 AC.Baroness Blatch, responding on behalf of the government, sought to justify the lack of judicial intervention.

'There is a danger of the judiciary becoming too closely involved in the investigative process and their impartiality being called into question,' she said.

This is misconceived.

Magistrates perform such functions every day when granting or refusing search warrants and circuit judges regularly consider ex parte applications for production orders under PACE to authorise police access to material held in circumstances of confidentiality, other than that subject to legal professional privilege.

One hears no protest from the judiciary that their impartiality has been called into question.In seeking to justify bugging lawyers' offices Baroness Blatch said: 'There may be occasions when a corrupt lawyer is involved.' This too is misconceived, for the Bill does not confine bugging to the corrupt.

The powers extend to the innocent, be they barristers, solicitors, investigative journalists, doctors or priests.

The sole test is one of 'substantial value in the prevention or detection of serious crime'.

Lest we should find comfort in the term 'serious crime', the three-year rule effectively means that the provisions will extend to virtually every offence, however trivial and howsoever obviously likely to merit a nominal sentence on conviction, triable at the Crown Court and many 'either way' offences triable summarily.The USA, Canada, Australia and countless other civilised countries forbid intrusion onto property without judicial warrant, yet it is proposed that we should do so and go further.

To enact these provisions would place us in contravention of art.

8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to respect for privacy, home and correspondence.The shadow home secretary, Jack Straw, previously justified judicial non-intervention on the grounds that a mere circuit judge, 'the lowest level of the full-time judiciary', cannot compare with 'the chief officer of police'.

What did he think circuit judges have been doing for the 13 years since PACE was enacted? He now suggests a new breed of 'commissioner' to give prior judicial approval.

It is difficult to see the need for this as circuit judges have been trusted to make similar decisions in relation to searches for years.The need for impartial judicial involvement is clear; to ensure that powers that threaten fundamental liberties are not abused, however justified they may seem to those exercising them.

'Liberties are founded on law, not on the grace and favour of the police' (Lord Alexander, The Times, 16 January).Legal professional privilege is fundamental to the administration of justice.

If clients feel unable to instruct their solicitors in preparation for trial in legal visiting rooms in prison, interview rooms at police stations or even in their own solicitors' offices or counsel's chambers for fear of bugs, court business will grind to a halt.

Indeed, solicitors may refuse to take instructions other than at court.

If a client is a police target then presumably all other clients seen in the same conference room on the same day will have their private communications bugged.Lord Rodgers has proposed an amendment in this week's debate that there be judicial intervention.

In relation to non lawyer/client situations this may be sufficient.

However, communications between lawyer and client have never been open to outside scrutiny, whether judicial or otherwise, unless they could be said to be in furtherance of crime.

That protection must remain.