High Court decision on our data retention challenge
May 5th, 2010
Great news today from the High Court where Mr. Justice McKechnie gave an extremely favourable decision on our constitutional challenge to data retention laws.
While the full judgment is 53 pages long, the gist is relatively simple.
Long story short: today’s decision has cleared the way for our challenge to proceed and to challenge the entire European legal basis for data retention.
(Following the wider European trend where Germany, Bulgaria and Romania have all found aspects of data retention to be unconstitutional.)
The longer version: Today’s decision dealt with three procedural issues which had to be cleared before we can argue the substance of the case: i.e. whether mass surveillance of this sort is compatible with constitutional guarantees of fundamental rights.
The first of these issues dealt with standing: could DRI (as a company, not a natural person) assert rights of privacy? And could it argue the rights of privacy of others? On this point the court held in our favour, accepting that DRI was a “sincere and serious litigant”, which raised these issues with bona fide interest and concern and ruling that it was appropriate for us to argue these points as this was a matter of “fundamental public importance”.
The second point dealt with an attempt by the State to stop the action in its tracks by seeking “security for costs” – i.e. requiring us to make a payment into court to cover the costs of the State should we lose the action. Because of the cost of High Court actions, requiring such a payment at the outset could effectively have prevented the case from being heard. Here the court rejected the State’s application, holding that:
the matters pleaded in this case do raise issues of significant public importance… Given the rapid advance of current technology it is of great importance to define the legitimate legal limits of modern surveillance techniques used by governments… without sufficient legal safeguards the potential for abuse and unwaranted invasion of privacy is obvious… That is not to say that this is the case here, but the potential is in my opinion so great that a greater scrutiny of the proposed legislation is certainly merited.”
Finally, the third point related to our application to refer this case to the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”). As data retention is now dealt with at a European level, it is important that we be able to challenge the European law in this area – something which can only be done before the ECJ in Luxembourg. Here the court again accepted our argument, holding that a reference to the ECJ was required and that it was appropriate that it be made at the current stage of the proceedings.
So what happens next? There will be some more legal argument next week about the precise questions which should be referred to the ECJ – after that, the case will be referred to the ECJ and will go into their system for a hearing in Luxembourg, which have implications for data retention across Europe.
Entry Filed under: Data Retention, Mass surveillance
16 Comments Add your own
1. Strijd bewaarplicht met g&hellip | May 6th, 2010 at 11:55 am
[...] het terugdraaien van de controversiële bewaarplicht bel- en internetgegevens is een feit. Na een uitspraak van de Ierse hoogste rechter op 6 mei 2010, zal het Europese Hof van Justitie zich moeten buigen over de verenigbaarheid van de [...]
2. seanohal | May 6th, 2010 at 10:16 pm
Exciting stuff.
3. Datalagringsdirektivet ti&hellip | May 7th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
[...] [...]
4. Albin Ring Broman | May 7th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
Trackback: http://albinringbroman.blogspot.com/2010/05/datalagringsdirektivet-verkar-provas-av.html
Good job!
5. James Byrne | May 7th, 2010 at 5:35 pm
Will the government have to stall on the already delayed bill in the interim?
6. Administrator | May 12th, 2010 at 2:37 pm
@James – Probably not, but the existence of a challenge is certainly a good reason to frame the Bill as narrowly as possible.
7. Digital Rights Ireland &r&hellip | May 12th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
[...] last week’s excitement, this week is something of an anti-climax – when the case came back before the High Court [...]
8. Greenhost Weblog - Bewaar&hellip | May 18th, 2010 at 11:34 pm
[...] Bits of Freedom. Dit ten gevolge van de uitspraak van de hoogste Ierse rechter, die stelt dat een uitspraak van het Europees Hof vereist is. De bewaarplicht in Nederland verplicht providers om een bepaalde lijst van communicatiegegevens [...]
9. Data Retention Directive &hellip | December 8th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
[...] European Court of Justice to respect the Fundamental Rights Charter on 3 May of this year. In 2011, the same European Court of Justice will rule on the constitutionality of the principle of data reten…, after a referral of this question by the Irish High Court. The Commission might realize in time [...]
10. Irish data retention law &hellip | February 3rd, 2011 at 10:39 am
[...] the legislation. Digital Rights Ireland took a constitutional challenge against the legislation and that challenge is en route to the European Court of Justice (the Act implements the EU data retention [...]
11. Telemedicus&hellip | May 13th, 2011 at 8:54 am
Vorratsdatenspeicherung: Kein Verfahren vor dem EuGH…
Angeblich ist gegen die Richtlinie zur Vorratsdatenspeicherung ist vor dem EuGH ein Verfahren anhängig. Der irische High Court soll diese Frage den Richtern in Luxemburg vorgelegt haben. So liest man es jedenfalls in parlamentarischen Anfragen im EU-Pa…
12. International Privacy Day&hellip | January 25th, 2012 at 9:20 am
[...] Court of Justice the case challenging the legality of the DRD, thanks to the complaint brought by Digital Rights Ireland. The Irish Court acknowledged the importance of defining “the legitimate legal [...]
13. International Privacy Day&hellip | January 25th, 2012 at 6:20 pm
[...] Court of Justice the case challenging the legality of the DRD, thanks to the complaint brought by Digital Rights Ireland. The Irish Court acknowledged the importance of defining “the legitimate legal [...]
14. International Privacy Day&hellip | January 30th, 2012 at 10:16 am
[...] Court of Justice the case challenging the legality of the DRD, thanks to the complaint brought by Digital Rights Ireland. The Irish Court acknowledged the importance of defining “the legitimate legal [...]
15. Europäischer Gerichtshof&hellip | September 12th, 2012 at 11:20 am
[...] Rights Ireland gegen die Vorratsdatenspeicherung. Das oberste Zivil- und Strafgericht der Republik entschied damals, den Europäischen Gerichtshof zu fragen, ob die Richtlinie zur Vorratsdatenspeicherung überhaupt [...]
16. The Fight Against Data Re&hellip | October 12th, 2012 at 2:06 am
[...] challenging the legality of the overall data retention directive, thanks to a complaint brought by Digital Rights Ireland. The Irish Court acknowledged the importance of defining “the legitimate legal limits of [...]
Leave a Comment
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed