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KLASS AND OTHERS v. GERMANY JUGDMENT
9. The oral hearings took place in public at the Human Rights Building,
Strasbourg, on 10 March.
There appeared before the Court:
- for the Government:
Mrs. I. MAIER, Ministerialdirigentin
at the Federal Ministry of Justice,
Agent,
Mr. H. G. MERK, Ministerialrat
at the Federal Ministry of the Interior,
Mr. H. STÖCKER, Regierungsdirektor
at the Federal Ministry of Justice,
Mrs. H. SEIBERT, Regierungsdirektorin
at the Federal Ministry of Justice,
Advisers;
- for the Commission:
Mr. G. SPERDUTI,
Principal Delegate,
Mr. C. A. NØRGAARD,
Delegate,
Mr. H.-J. POHL, Applicant, assisting the Delegates
under Rule 29 para. 1, second sentence.
The Court heard addresses by Mrs. Maier for the Government and by Mr.
Sperduti, Mr. Nørgaard and Mr. Pohl for the Commission, as well as their
replies to questions put by several members of the Court.
AS TO THE FACTS
10. The applicants, who are German nationals, are Gerhard Klass, an
Oberstaatsanwalt, Peter Lubberger, a lawyer, Jürgen Nussbruch, a judge,
Hans-Jürgen Pohl and Dieter Selb, lawyers. Mr. Nussbruch lives in
Heidelberg, the others in Mannheim.
All five applicants claim that Article 10 para. 2 of the Basic Law
(Grundgesetz) and a statute enacted in pursuance of that provision, namely
the Act of 13 August 1968 on Restrictions on the Secrecy of the Mail, Post
and Telecommunications (Gesetz zur Beschränkung des Brief-, Post- under
Fernmeldegeheimnisses, hereinafter referred to as "the G 10"), are contrary
to the Convention. They do not dispute that the State has the right to have
recourse to the surveillance measures contemplated by the legislation; they
challenge this legislation in that it permits those measures without obliging
the authorities in every case to notify the persons concerned after the event,
and in that it excludes any remedy before the courts against the ordering and
execution of such measures. Their application is directed against the
legislation as modified and interpreted by the Federal Constitutional Court
(Bundesverfassungsgericht).
11. Before lodging their application with the Commission, the applicants
had in fact appealed to the Federal Constitutional Court. By judgment of 15