Illegitimate wiretapping of Contrada: Strasbourg condemns Italy

In Italy there is a lack of jurisdictional protection that allows individuals who are wiretapped, without being investigated or charged, to obtain an assessment of the legitimacy of the surveillance measure as they are not parties to the proceedings. A situation that for the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled yesterday in the Contrada v. Italy judgment (no. 4, appeal no. 2507/19), is a violation of Article 8, which guarantees the right to respect for private life and correspondence.

Referring to Strasbourg was Bruno Contrada, a former police officer and deputy director of Sisde, who claimed that the wiretapping ordered by the judicial authorities in connection with criminal proceedings in which he was neither a suspect nor a defendant had led to a violation of certain conventional rights.

First of all, the European Court found that wiretapping was provided for by law and, therefore, the interference had a legal basis in Italian law. Domestic rules specify the circumstances justifying wiretapping as well as the possible recipients. However, in cases where an individual is wiretapped without being a party to criminal proceedings and without having participated in the commission of the offence, the judicial authorities are not obliged to inform him of the filing of the transcripts. Therefore, while those who are parties to the criminal proceedings have access to the recordings and transcripts and can challenge the legality and necessity of the interceptions in national courts, individuals who are not parties to the criminal proceedings are not allowed to do so. This is also because persons not involved in the criminal proceedings do not receive a notification of the filing of the recordings and, consequently, may never learn that they have been the subject of a surveillance measure. It is true," the Court observes, "that even persons not directly involved in the proceedings may ask a court to destroy the data if they are not necessary for the continuation of the proceedings or obtain a notification after the fact, but it is not claimed that the court is required to review the lawfulness and necessity of the decision ordering the interception.

In the present case, the appellant had only become aware of the wiretapping because a search order had been sent to him, but, under Italian rules, he had not been able to challenge the lawfulness of the order ordering the wiretapping. A situation that deprived the individual of an important guarantee against possible abuses. Hence the sentence against Italy for breach of Article 8 with an obligation for the Italian State to pay the appellant EUR 9,000 for non-pecuniary damage suffered.

On the other hand, the Court declared the appeal inadmissible insofar as it related to the search warrant because the prior exhaustion of domestic appeals had not been complied with.