The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) held unanimously on Thursday that Ukraine violated the right to respect for private life of three Ukrainian nationals and their lawyer by ordering unlawful surveillance measures. The court also determined that the authorities failed to comply with their obligation to provide the necessary resources for the case examination by denying the applicants access to documentation to challenge the investigative measures.
In its ruling, the ECHR highlighted that the secret surveillance measures ordered by Ukrainian authorities were not lawful as there was no evidence of official requests issued by those authorities. The court noted that the Ukrainian government not only classified these requests but also refused to deliver copies to the applicants while conducting covert investigative measures, violating article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The secret investigative measures were decided by Ukraine’s national authorities against three public officials accused of corruption and included both telephone tapping and video monitoring.
The ECHR also found that Ukraine’s authorities infringed upon the professional secrecy of the applicants’ lawyer by wiretapping his phone communications with his clients and failing to implement the necessary safeguards to protect these communications from abuse. According to the court, secret surveillance measures that might interfere with lawyers’ professional secrecy must adhere to rigorous requirements in terms of clarity and precision in order to be considered lawful.
Furthermore, the ECHR stated that the Ukrainian applicants were unable to challenge the investigative measures because they lacked access to sufficient information and evidence due to the authorities’ refusal to cooperate. The court emphasized that the Ukrainian government, as a party to the proceedings, was obliged to comply with the court’s requests for evidence. Ukraine’s government did not give reasons for its failure to cooperate or propose alternative solutions to fulfil its obligation. Consequently, this lack of cooperation violated Article 38 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Additionally, the court ordered Ukraine to pay 6,000 euros in reparations for two of the applicants as stipulated under Article 41 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The applicants in this case are Stanislav Fedorovych Denysyuk, Mykhaylo Mykhaylovych Beylin, Maksym Stanislavovych Berezkin, and the defense lawyer for the latter two, Nazar Stepanovych Kulchytskyy. Denysyuk, Beylin and Berezkin faced corruption charges and were subjected to secret investigative measures, including video and audio monitoring. The investigations also extended to Kulchytskyy, whose phone conversations with his clients were wiretapped by authorities. The three Ukrainian applicants filed a complaint with the ECHR in 2019, claiming that their rights, as outlined in Articles 8, 13, and 38 of the European Convention on Human Rights, were violated. As for the defense lawyer, he argued in his complaint that the interception of his phone calls breached both Articles 8 and 13.
