Bulgarian Public Authorities Do Not Respect Privacy When Using Secret Surveillance System: The Strasbourg Court Condemns Sofia (For the Second Time) For Violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights
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Abstract
In the last few years, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has been asked many times to examine different aspects of the Council of Europe’s (COE) Member States’ (secret) surveillance legislation, especially with reference to the use of mass secret surveillance system against their own residents and to the bulk surveillance system or interception of electronic communications coming from abroad. On 11 January 2022, in Ekimdzhiev and Others v. Bulgaria (no. 70078/12), the ECtHR ruled that Bulgarian law is incompatible with the right to private life as anchored in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), due Bulgaria appeared unable to provide effective guarantees that its citizens would not be subjected to “abusive” surveillance by the public authorities. The aim of this paper is to investigate the reasons of that judgment, in order to understand the impact of ECtHR ruling on international legal framework. The first part of the paper analyses the right to privacy in the international legal framework. The second part of the paper investigates the factual and legal background of Ekimdzhiev and Others v. Bulgaria dispute and the reasons expressed in the judgment published on 11 January 2022 by the Strasbourg Court. Moreover, it presents some critical reflections on the relevance of European Union’s personal data legislation and on compatibility of bulk surveillance systems with international legal framework.
Keywords
secret surveillance system; privacy; bulk surveillance system; European Court of Human Rights; Bulgarian legislation.
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