Information Note on the Court’s case-law 55
July 2003
Craxi v. Italy (no. 2) - 25337/94
Judgment 17.7.2003 [Section I]
Article 8
Article 8-1
Respect for private life
Reading out at trial of transcripts of telephone conversations intercepted in the context of criminal proceedings and subsequent release into the public domain: violation
Facts: The applicant, a former Prime Minister of Italy, was committed for trial in June 1994 on charges of corruption. He had absconded to Tunisia. In September 1995 the Milan District Court authorised the interception his telephone calls between Tunisia and Italy. The prosecutor filed the transcripts with the registry and asked for them to be admitted in evidence. The same day, he read out extracts of the conversations at a court hearing. The transcripts were made available to the parties immediately afterwards. Extracts from a number of intercepted conversations were subsequently reproduced in the press, although no one admitted to having divulged them. The court admitted some of the transcripts in evidence. The applicant was convicted.
Law: Article 8 – The reading out and subsequent disclosure to the press constituted interferences with the right to respect for private life and correspondence.
(a) disclosure: Reporting on court proceedings is perfectly consonant with the requirement under Article 6 that hearings be public. The media have the task of imparting information and ideas and the public has a right to receive them, especially when a public figure is involved. However, public interest in receiving information only covers facts connected with the criminal charges brought against the accused. In the present case, some of the conversations published in the press were of a strictly private nature and had little or no connection with the criminal charges. Their publication by the press did not, therefore, correspond to a pressing social need and the interference was not proportionate. However, the question arose whether the responsibility of the State was engaged, since the publication was made by private newspapers and it had not been suggested that these were in some way under the control of the public authorities. The Court found it established that the source of the information was the transcripts deposited with the District Court’s registry. The public prosecutor had not chosen to release them into the public domain, since under domestic law the deposit of a document in the registry does not render it accessible to the public, but only to the parties. In these circumstances, the divulgence of the conversations was not a direct consequence of an act of the public prosecutor but was likely to have been caused by a malfunction of the registry or by the press obtaining the information from one of the parties to the proceedings or their lawyers. In that respect, it was necessary to ascertain whether the authorities had taken the necessary steps to ensure effective protection of the applicant’s rights by making available appropriate safeguards and carrying out an effective enquiry. The authorities had, however, failed in these obligations.
Conclusion: violation (6 votes to 1).
(b) reading out at trial: The aim of the procedural requirements in the Code of Criminal Procedure was to provide the parties and the judge with an opportunity to select the interceptions which were of no relevance and whose disclosure could have adversely interfered with the accused’s right to respect for private life and correspondence. They therefore constituted a substantial safeguard. Nothing in the District Court’s order explained why these guarantees could not be respected. In these circumstances, the interference was not “in accordance with the law”, as the authorities had failed to follow the procedures prescribed by law before allowing the transcripts to be read out.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 41 – The Court made awards in respect of non-pecuniary damage to the applicant’s heirs.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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