Nishka Srinivas Veluvali
Published On: January 12, 2021 at 18:33 IST
The European Court of Human Rights passed a decree that pronounced the Secret Surveillance Law of Bulgaria is a violation of European Human Rights Convention.
The European Court of Human Rights had directed the Strasbourg Court to review the Bulgaria’s Surveillance Legislation along with the several articles in the Criminal Code of the country.
The European Court stated on Tuesday that, “Legislation governing secret Surveillance did not meet the quality of Law requirement and the Bulgarian Government was unable to limit the Surveillance to the matters that required monitoring.”
The Court observed that the Surveillance Laws in Bulgaria permitted the Government to wiretap the telephonic conversations of the citizens which does not guarantee the Right of Privacy to the citizens completely as required in the democratic society.
The Case against this Surveillance Legislation was put forth by two Bulgarian Lawyers Mihail Ekemdzhiev and Alexander Kashnamov along with two human rights organisations in 2012 which was updated with the new set of Evidences in the last decade.
In the previous year, Special Parliamentary Commission disclosed one of the biggest scams of wiretap in the country’s history.
It was revealed that about more than 900 citizens phone conversations were recorded which included journalists, politicians and activists during the Anti-Corruption protests, which caused the fall of the centre-right Government of Bulgaria.
The Court’s ruling also urged the Bulgarian Government to come forward with the amended Laws in accordance with the Human Rights Convention.