“With yesterday’s important article, the president of the Communications Privacy Authority, Mr. Christos Rammos, fully clarified the legal framework regarding the lifting of privacy for reasons of national security”, reports SYRIZA -PS in his announcement.
SYRIZA asks the questions: Are the public prosecutors, who decide to declassify communications, citing reasons of national security, absolved of any responsibility for their provisions? Are these legal by definition? The official opposition party notes in this regard that “Mr. Rammos replies that the provisions must be checked, that the ADAE is the competent Authority for this and that the existing legal framework is sufficient to do so”. SYRIZA emphasizes that “as for the prosecutors who issue formal, but not essentially legal, provisions to remove telephone privacy, it clarifies that they are not exempt from their disciplinary, civil and criminal responsibilities, which leaves open the possibility of the search them in the future, when the rule of law will have been restored in the country”.
SYRIZA comments that “the control of legality and justification are highlighted in key issues of freedom, democracy and justice by Mr. Rammos, which the governing majority blatantly bypassed, refusing the proposal of the five opposition parties for a summons to the Institutions and Transparency Committee of the prosecutor of the Supreme Court Ms. Adeline and the deputy prosecutor Mr. Life, together with the transmission of the finding on the wiretapping scandal”.
Following the above, he argues that “it is confirmed once again that the president of ADAE, in addition to his indisputable legal depth and training, has always functioned as a real guardian of the Constitution, which led the government to remove his powers, changing the composition of ADAE in a coup d’état, with the help of Mr. Velopoulos”.
The article by Christos Rammos
The head of the Personal Data Protection Authority, Christos Rammos, in his extensive article in Syntagma Watc, referred to the recent conclusion of the Supreme Court Prosecutor’s Office on wiretapping. In particular, he analyzes the issue concerning the legality of provisions declassifying communications for reasons of national security, citing the difference between legal and statutory, according to his view.
“Prosecutorial provisions on declassification of communications for reasons of national security are immediately enforceable if issued. In other words, the telecommunications service provider, which owns the instrument for which the removal has been ordered, cannot refuse to carry out the relevant order. There the legal consequences of these provisions are exhausted from the point of view of their enforceability, but the fact of the completed removal of privacy at the expense of the affected citizen remains for the future as a consequence of a provision. Consequently, a prosecutor’s order that has been issued without having met the legal conditions or having followed the legal procedure for its issuance (as they/she were quoted above) was legally issued, and was properly implemented, but does not have the general presumption of legality . In particular, the public prosecutor issuing it is not exempted from being asked in the future, based on a complaint or a legal remedy, of anyone who can establish a relevant legal interest, either disciplinary, civil, or even criminal responsibilities in the event that it is established by the ADAE (acting or following a complaint or question from an affected citizen, or ex officio) that the procedure or any condition required for the issuance of the disputed order was not followed. In such a case, the official who issued the order could not object that he cannot be held responsible under any circumstances, because the order is entirely legal and no responsibility for a legal act can be established.
Disciplinary responsibilities could be sought based on a disciplinary procedure that would be instituted in such a case by the Prosecutor of the Supreme Court. Civil liability would arise in such a case following a lawsuit by the victim of the measure of the removal of confidentiality, which would be exercised after the notification of the taking of the measure, concurrently with the conditions of the provision of paragraph 7 of article 4 of Law 5002/ 22. In this case the compensation judge would decide whether the conditions and the procedure for taking the measure were met. The judge in question could also issue a pre-trial ruling, in order to ask the ADAE to check whether the conditions and the procedure for lifting the confidentiality of the communications were respected in this particular case. Finally, anyone with a legitimate interest could request the criminal prosecution of a public prosecutor issuing an order to remove the confidentiality of his communications, without the legal terms and conditions being met, citing the provision of article 259 of the Civil Code (breach of duty).
The above consequences only concern the personal responsibility of a judicial officer issuing an order to remove the confidentiality of communications, without the legal conditions for this being met or the legal procedure for its issuance having been observed, and do not exclude the additional imposition of disciplinary sanctions against of the EYP or DAEEB (on the basis of article 11 of Law 3115/2003) in the event that they would disturb or prevent the controlling specific declassification of communications for reasons of national security ADAE from checking, as it has the above competence to act, if the legal conditions were met in this case and if the legal procedure was followed for the issuance of the disputed provision”, the conclusion of the article states.
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