ROMAN ZAKHAROV v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT
35
2006) confirmed that installation of interception equipment, or even its
financing, by private companies was not in itself contrary to the
Convention.
153. The Government further submitted that Article 34 could not be
used to lodge an application in the nature of an actio popularis; nor could it
form the basis of a claim made in abstracto that a law contravened the
Convention (they referred to Aalmoes and Others v. the Netherlands (dec.),
no. 16269/02, 25 November 2004). They argued that the approach to victim
status established in the cases of Klass and Others v. Germany (6 September
1978, § 34, Series A no. 28) and Malone v. the United Kingdom (2 August
1984, § 64, Series A no. 82) – according to which an individual might,
under certain conditions, claim to be the victim of a violation occasioned by
the mere existence of secret measures or of legislation permitting secret
measures, without having to allege that such measures had in fact been
applied to him– could not be interpreted so broadly as to encompass every
person in the respondent State who feared that the security services might
have compiled information about him. An applicant was required to
demonstrate that there was a “reasonable likelihood” that the security
services had compiled and retained information concerning his private life
(they referred to Esbester v. the United Kingdom, no. 18601/91,
Commission decision of 2 April 1993, unreported; Redgrave v. the United
Kingdom, no. 20271/92, Commission decision of 1 September 1993,
unreported; Matthews v. the United Kingdom, no. 28576/95, Commission
decision of 16 October 1996, unreported; Halford v. the United Kingdom,
25 June 1997, § 17, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1997-III; Weber
and Saravia v. Germany (dec.), no. 54934/00, §§ 4-6 and 78, ECHR
2006-XI; and Kennedy v. the United Kingdom, no. 26839/05, §§ 122-23,
18 May 2010).
154. The Government maintained that exceptions to the rule of
“reasonable likelihood” were permissible only for special reasons. An
individual could claim an interference as a result of the mere existence of
legislation permitting secret surveillance measures in exceptional
circumstances only, having regard to the availability of any remedies at the
national level and the risk of secret surveillance measures being applied to
him (they cited Kennedy, cited above, § 124). According to the
Government, no such special reasons could be established in the present
case.
155. Firstly, there was no “reasonable likelihood”, or indeed any risk
whatsoever, that the applicant had been subjected to surveillance measures
because he had not been suspected of any criminal offences. The fact that he
was the editor-in-chief of a publishing company could not serve as a ground
for interception under Russian law. The Government asserted that the
applicant’s telephone conversations had never been intercepted. The
applicant had not produced any proof to the contrary. The documents