particular crimes, thus the differences in legislation between criminal secret surveillance and secret
surveillance for national security purposes were not unjustified.
Complaints, procedure and composition of the Court
Relying on Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life, the home and the correspondence),
the applicants complained that they could potentially be subjected to unjustified and
disproportionately intrusive measures within the Hungarian legal framework on secret surveillance
for national security purposes (namely, “section 7/E (3) surveillance”). They alleged in particular that
this legal framework was prone to abuse, notably for want of judicial control. They also complained
that their exposure to secret surveillance without judicial control or remedy breached their rights
under Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair hearing/ access to court) and Article 13 (right to an effective
remedy) read in conjunction with Article 8.
The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 13 May 2014.
Privacy International and the Center for Democracy & Technology, both non-governmental
organisations, were given permission to make written submissions as third parties.
Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:
Vincent A. de Gaetano (Malta), President,
András Sajó (Hungary),
Boštjan M. Zupančič (Slovenia),
Nona Tsotsoria (Georgia),
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Portugal),
Krzysztof Wojtyczek (Poland),
Iulia Antoanella Motoc (Romania),
and also Fatoş Aracı, Deputy Section Registrar.
Decision of the Court
Article 8 (privacy rights)
Firstly, the Court noted that the Constitutional Court, having examined the applicants’ constitutional
complaint on the merits, had implicitly acknowledged that they had been personally affected by the
legislation in question. In any case, whether or not the applicants – as staff members of a watchdog
organisation – belonged to a targeted group, the Court considered that the legislation directly
affected all users of communication systems and all homes. Moreover, the domestic law does not
apparently provide any possibility for an individual who suspected that their communications were
being intercepted to lodge a complaint with an independent body. Considering these two
circumstances, the Court was of the view that the applicants could therefore claim to be victims of a
violation of their rights under the European Convention. Furthermore, the Court was satisfied that
the applicants had exhausted domestic remedies by bringing to the attention of the national
authorities – namely the Constitutional Court – the essence of their grievance.
The Court found that there had been an interference with the applicants’ right to respect for private
and family life as concerned their general complaint about the rules of section 7/E (3) (and not as
concerned any actual interception of their communications allegedly taking place). It was not in
dispute between the parties that that interference’s aim was to safeguard national security and/or
to prevent disorder or crime and that it had had a legal basis, namely under the Police Act of 1994
and the National Security Act. Furthermore, the Court was satisfied that the two situations
permitting secret surveillance for national security purposes under domestic law, namely the danger
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