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Human rights rulings: Some decisions of the European Commission of Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights

01 September 1991

Telephone tapping: In a judgment given in April 1990 (Kruslin and Hurnig v France) the European Court of Human Rights held that the French system of telephone tapping violated Article 8 of the Convention (the right to privacy), since French law did not declare with sufficient clarity the scope and manner of the exercise of the discretion to authorise telephone tapping. The Court said that telephone tapping represented a serious interference with private life and communications and accordingly had to be based on a law which was particularly precise. It was essential to have clear, detailed rules on the subject, especially as the technology is continually becoming more sophisticated. The categories of people liable to have their phone tapped by judicial order and the nature of the offences which might give rise to such an order were nowhere defined. Nothing obliged a judge to set a limit on the duration of the tapping. The information from the government on these and other points showed at best the existence of a practice, but one lacking the necessary regulatory control in the absence of legislation or case law. Restrictions on journalists: The Commission held inadmissible the complaint of Betty Purcell and others against the government of Ireland's restrictions on journalists which prohibited them from broadcasting interviews with members of certain listed organisations (the complaint alleged that these restrictions violated Article 10, freedom of expression). However, it found that Article 10 had been violated by the British government's temporary injunctions against the Observer, the Guardian and the Sunday Times to prevent them from publishing extracts from Spycatcher . The cases (Observer and Guardian v UK; Sunday Times v UK) went to the Court for hearing on 25 June 1991. The Commission also found a breach of Article 10 in the Irish government's ban on the provision of information to pregnant women as to names and addresses of abortion clinics in the UK (Open Door Counselling and Dublin Well Woman Centre v Ireland). Detention on remand: Remand prisoners awaiting trial for periods approaching 3 years were held by the Commission to be victims of violations of Article 5(3), which guarantees the right to have a trial within a reasonable period or to be released pending trial. The case of Clooth v Belgium, in which a murder and arson suspect had been held for 3 years, was referred to the full court for hearing on 24 June 1991. In Letellier v France the Court held on 26 June 1991 that the detention pending trial of a suspect for 2 years and 10 months was a violation of Article 5(3). Expulsion: In Moustaquin v Belgium the Commission found a violation of Article 8 (the right to family life) by the Belgian government's expulsion of a Moroccan national aged 20, who had committed a number of serious offences, who had lived in Belgium virtually all his life, spoke no Arabic and knew no-one in Morocco. ECHR Press Releases 19-26.6.91; Human Rights News 200(91) 3.6.91; Council of Europe Human Rights H/Inf (90)2 Information Sheet No. 26.