Reply to post: Grand Chamber panel included the Russian Judge

Grand Chamber panel included the Russian Judge

Judgment was given by the Grand Chamber of 17 judges, composed as follows:

Dean Spielmann (Luxembourg), President, Josep Casadevall (Andorra), Guido Raimondi (Italy), Ineta Ziemele (Latvia), Mark Villiger (Liechtenstein), Luis López Guerra (Spain), Khanlar Hajiyev (Azerbaijan), Angelika Nußberger (Germany), Julia Laffranque (Estonia), Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos (Greece), Erik Møse (Norway), André Potocki (France), Paul Lemmens (Belgium), Helena Jäderblom (Sweden), Faris Vehabović (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Ksenija Turković (Croatia), Dmitry Dedov (Russia),

and also

Lawrence Early, Jurisconsult.

It is particularly enlightening to read the Russian Judge Dedov's concurring opinion [0] in the judgement (not the press release) which at clause 4 states, in part:

"4. Role of the judiciary in civil society

Nonetheless, I have voted for admissibility and for the finding of a violation of Article 8 of the Convention on account of the fact that the fundamental importance of safeguards to protect private communications against arbitrary surveillance, especially in the non-criminal context, was never addressed in the domestic proceedings.

The Russian courts refused to address the applicant’s allegations on the merits, mistakenly referring to the technical nature of the impugned ministerial orders.

As a national judge, I cannot ignore the fact that a widespread suspicion exists in Russian society that surveillance is exercised over political and economic figures, including human-rights activists, opposition activists and leaders, journalists, State officials, managers of State property – in other words, over all those who are involved in public affairs. Such a suspicion is based on past experience of the totalitarian regime during the Soviet era, and even on the long history of the Russian Empire.

This judgment could serve as a basis for improving the legislation in the sphere of operational and search activities and for establishing an effective system of public control over surveillance. Moreover, this judgment demonstrates that if widespread suspicion exists in society, and if there is no other possibility for society to lift this suspicion without a social contract and appropriate changes in national law and practice, then where the problem is not identified by the other branches of power, the judiciary must be active in order to facilitate those changes. This is even more obvious if there are no other means available to protect democracy and the rule of law. This is an important role which the judiciary must play in civil society."

His prior points about surveillance and interception in Germany and the UK, and other cases previously before the UCtHR are also worth reading.

[0] http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#{%22itemid%22:[%22001-159324%22]} CASE OF ROMAN ZAKHAROV v. RUSSIA Application no. 47143/06