The Kingdom of Bahrain (Appellant) v Shehabi and another (Respondents)

Hearing listed

Case summary
Appeal
Change log

Case summary

Case ID

UKSC/2024/0152

Parties

Appellant(s)

The Kingdom of Bahrain

Respondent(s)

(1) Dr Saeed Shehabi, (2) Moosa Mohammed

Issue

Is a foreign State whose agents, located abroad, cause spyware to be installed remotely on the computers of individuals located in the United Kingdom, causing those individuals psychiatric injury when they discover that the State has been spying on them in this way, entitled to immunity from civil proceedings under section 5 of the State Immunity Act 1978?

Facts

The Respondents, Dr Shehabi and Mr Mohammed, allege that from around September 2011 persons acting on behalf of the Appellant, The Kingdom of Bahrain, hacked or infected their computers with a spyware program. On the Respondents’ case, those persons were likely situated outside the United Kingdom when they did so; whereas it was the Respondents and their computers that were in the United Kingdom. They claim that this constituted harassment under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. The Respondents suffered psychiatric injury on learning that their computers had been hacked in this way, apparently learning as much in or around August 2014 allegedly as a result of publications by WikiLeaks and an organisation called Bahrain Watch. The Respondents claimed that this amounts to “personal injury” within section 5 of the State Immunity Act 1978 and that the Appellant is therefore not immune from civil proceedings in England and Wales. The Respondents applied for permission to serve a claim form and particulars of claim out of the jurisdiction against the Appellant which was granted. The Appellant applied to set aside service on the basis that the courts of England and Wales lack jurisdiction. In particular, it claimed that it enjoys State immunity under the State Immunity Act 1978, a point which has been considered as a preliminary issue in the proceedings to date (the underlying merits of the claim have not yet been determined). The High Court refused the Appellant’s application to set aside service on grounds of State immunity. The Court of Appeal dismissed the Appellant’s appeal. The Appellant now appeals to the Supreme Court.