Slovakia / Constitutional Court / PL. ÚS 10/2014-78

Members of the National Council of the Slovak Republic
Policy area
Information society
Deciding body type
National Court/Tribunal
Type
Decision
Decision date
29/04/2015
  • Slovakia / Constitutional Court / PL. ÚS 10/2014-78

    Key facts of the case:

    Members of the Parliament submitted a motion for the compatibility of the Electronic Communications Act, Criminal Procedure Code and the Act on Police Force with the EU Charter, ECHR and the Constitution. The compatibility of the abovementioned legislation was questioned by 31 members of the Parliament arguing that the legislation interfers with the citizens‘ right to private life. The Electronic Communications Act obliged the electronic communications providers to store private users' data (such as traffic and location data and communication data) for the period of 6 (internet communication) to 12 months (other types of communication). The MPs also asked the Court to pose a question to the ECJ concerning the validity of the Art. 3, Art. 5 and Art. 6 of the Directive 2006/24/EC concerning the principle of data retention.', as the challenged legislation was amended for the purposes of the implementation of the Directive.

    Outcome of the case:

    The Court stated that the challenged legislation is unconstitutional and incompatible with the Art. 8 of the ECHR. Regarding the validity of the Directive 2006/24/EC, the Constitutional Court declared posing the question to ECJ as unnecessary, since this question was already resolved by the ECJ in the case of Digital Rights Ireland Ltd. Invalidating of the Directive 2006/24/EC by the ECJ did not, according to the Constitutional Court, mean that challenged legislation adopted in order to implement the Directive would no longer fall within the remit of the EU law. However, the Court stated that following the judgment that the challenged legislation is unconstitutional, it does no longer need to check its compatibility with the EU law (therefore the Charter).