48
ROMAN ZAKHAROV v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT
196. As regards safeguards against unauthorised interceptions, the
applicant submitted that the law-enforcement authorities were not required
under domestic law to show judicial authorisation to the communications
service provider before obtaining access to a person’s communications. All
judicial authorisations were classified documents, kept in the exclusive
possession of law-enforcement authorities. An obligation to forward an
interception authorisation to the communications service provider was
mentioned only once in Russian law in connection with the monitoring of
communications-related data under the CCrP (see paragraph 48 above). The
equipment the communications service providers had installed pursuant to
the Orders issued by the Ministry of Communications, in particular the
unpublished addendums to Order no. 70, allowed the law-enforcement
authorities direct and unrestricted access to all mobile-telephone
communications of all users. The communications service providers also
had an obligation under Order no. 538 to create databases to store
information about all subscribers and the services provided to them for three
years. The secret services had direct remote access to those databases. The
manner in which the system of secret surveillance thus operated gave the
security services and the police the technical means to circumvent the
authorisation procedure and to intercept any communications without
obtaining prior judicial authorisation. The necessity to obtain such
authorisation therefore arose only in those cases where the intercepted data
had to be used as evidence in criminal proceedings.
197. The applicant produced documents showing, in his view, that lawenforcement officials unlawfully intercepted telephone communications
without prior judicial authorisation and disclosed the records to
unauthorised persons. For example, he produced printouts from the Internet
containing transcripts of the private telephone conversations of politicians.
He also submitted news articles describing criminal proceedings against
several high-ranking officers from the police technical department. The
officers were suspected of unlawfully intercepting the private
communications of politicians and businessmen in return for bribes from
their political or business rivals. The news articles referred to witness
statements to the effect that intercepting communications in return for bribes
was a widespread practice and that anyone could buy a transcript of another
person’s telephone conversations from the police.
(β) The Government
198. The Government submitted that any interception of telephone or
other communications had to be authorised by a court. The court took a
decision on the basis of a reasoned request by a law-enforcement authority.
The burden of proof was on the requesting authority to justify the necessity
of the interception measures. To satisfy that burden of proof, the requesting
authorities enclosed with their request all relevant supporting materials,