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ROMAN ZAKHAROV v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT
issued on 18 July 2003, authorised the interception of a Mr E.’s mobiletelephone communications during the period from 11 April to 11 October
2003. As to the addendum, it informed the subscriber that if his number
were used to make terrorist threats, the mobile-network operator might
suspend the provision of the telephone service and transfer the collected
data to the law-enforcement agencies. In the applicant’s opinion, the judicial
orders and the addendum proved that the mobile-network operators and lawenforcement agencies were technically capable of intercepting all telephone
communications without obtaining prior judicial authorisation, and
routinely resorted to unauthorised interception.
13. On 26 April 2006 the St Petersburg City Court upheld the judgment
on appeal. It confirmed the District Court’s finding that the applicant had
failed to prove that his telephone communications had been intercepted. Nor
had he shown that there was a danger that his right to the privacy of his
telephone communications might be unlawfully infringed. To establish the
existence of such a danger, the applicant would have had to prove that the
respondents had acted unlawfully. However, mobile-network operators were
required by law to install equipment enabling law-enforcement agencies to
perform operational-search activities and the existence of that equipment
did not in itself interfere with the privacy of the applicant’s
communications. The refusal to admit the judicial orders of 8 October 2002
and 18 July 2003 in evidence had been lawful, as the judicial orders had
been issued in respect of third persons and were irrelevant to the applicant’s
case. The City Court further decided to admit in evidence and examine the
addendum to the service-provider agreement, but found that it did not
contain any information warranting reconsideration of the District Court’s
judgment.
14. It can be seen from a document submitted by the applicant that in
January 2007 an NGO, Civilian Control, asked the Prosecutor General’s
Office to carry out an inspection of the Ministry of Communications’
Orders in the sphere of interception of communications in order to verify
their compatibility with federal laws. In February 2007 an official from the
Prosecutor General’s Office telephoned Civilian Control and asked for
copies of the unpublished attachments to Order no. 70, saying that it had
been unable to obtain them from the Ministry of Communications. In April
2007 the Prosecutor General’s Office refused to carry out the requested
inspection.
II. RELEVANT DOMESTIC LAW
A. Right to respect for private life and correspondence
15. The Constitution guarantees to everyone the right to respect for his
private life, personal and family secrets and the right to defend his honour