Last Updated on January 11, 2024 by LawEuro
European Court of Human Rights (Applications nos. 61147/13 and 10 others)
The applicants complained principally of the secret surveillance in the context of criminal proceedings. They relied, expressly or in substance, on Article 8 of the Convention.
The European Court of Human Rights noted the following:
The Court reiterates that the measures aimed at interception of telephone communications amounted to an interference with the exercise of the rights set out in Article 8 of the Convention and that such interference will give rise to a breach of Article 8 of the Convention unless it can be shown that it was “in accordance with law”, pursued one or more legitimate aim or aims as defined in the second paragraph and was “necessary in a democratic society” to achieve those aims. It further reiterates that it is the obligation of the domestic courts to carry out an effective judicial review of the lawfulness and “necessity in a democratic society” of the contested surveillance measures and to furnish sufficient safeguards against arbitrariness within the meaning of Article 8 § 2 of the Convention. The failure to comply with these requirements would lead the Court to conclude to a violation of the Article 8 of the Convention (see, for example, Dudchenko v. Russia, no. 37717/05, §§ 93‑100, 7 November 2017, in which it was established that the domestic courts failed to verify, when authorising covert surveillance in respect of the applicant, whether there was a “reasonable suspicion” against him and to apply the “necessity in a democratic society” and “proportionality” tests).
The Court further refers to its earlier findings that (1) the Russian legislation which permitted the police to conduct secret surveillance without judicial authorisation fell short of the standards of the quality of law set out in Article 8 of the Convention.
The Court does not lose sight that in earlier cases against Russia it has not established an availability of effective remedies for the applicants to exhaust prior to introducing a complaint before the Court. In this connection, it reiterates that the applicants cannot be reproached for their attempt to bring their grievances to the attention of the domestic courts through the remedies which they mistakenly considered effective in the absence of evidence that they were aware or should have become aware of the futility of their course of action.
Having examined all the material submitted to it, the Court has not found any fact or argument capable of persuading it to reach a different conclusion on the admissibility and merits of these complaints. Having regard to its case-law on the subject, the Court considers that in the cases under consideration (1) the interception and recording of the applicants’ communications conducted in the absence of a judicial authorisation were not accompanied by adequate safeguards against various possible abuses, were open to arbitrariness and inconsistent with the requirement of lawfulness and (2) the domestic courts did not verify the existence of a “reasonable suspicion” and did not apply the “necessity in a democratic society test” when examining the applicants’ complaints. Moreover, (3) the refusal to disclose the surveillance authorisation to the applicants without any valid reason deprived them of any possibility to have the lawfulness of the measure, and its “necessity in a democratic society”, reviewed by an independent tribunal in the light of the relevant principles of Article 8 of the Convention.
These complaints are therefore admissible and disclose a breach of Article 8 of the Convention.
CASE OF TREVOGIN AND OTHERS v. RUSSIA (European Court of Human Rights) 61147/13 and 10 others. Full text of the document.
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