Constitutional Court Considers Public Defender's Lawsuit Concerning the Law on Electronic Communications on Its Merits
On December 17-18, 2015, the Constitutional Court is considering the Public Defender's lawsuit concerning the Law on Electronic Communications on its merits. The lawsuit concerns the constitutionality of subparagraphs “a” and “b” of paragraph 1 of article 83of the Law of Georgia on Electronic Communications in relation to the right to privacy enshrined in the first paragraph of article 20 of the Constitution of Georgia.
Thus, the Public Defender appealed against the Parliament’s legislative regulations on wiretapping adopted on 30 November 2014.
The Public Defender considers that the right of the authorities to copy identifiable data, to keep them for 2 years and to get real-time information about the content of communications non-stop, violates the constitutional right to privacy.
Representatives of the Public Defender of Georgia presented their opinions about the necessity for considering the case on the merits as well as relevant arguments against the shortcomings in the existing “two-key” system of wiretapping to the Court. According to them, the legal framework fails to provide adequate safeguards to prevent arbitrariness from the state agencies.
The Court also listened to the opinions of representatives of the Prosecutor's Office, the State Security Service and the Personal Data Protection Inspector about the issues raised during the consideration of the lawsuit.
