WIRE TAPPING IN CRIMINAL TRIAL. GUARANTEES FOR A FAIR TRIAL

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to carry out an examination of the national legislation and jurisprudence in order to establish whether sufficient guarantees are regulated by law against arbitrariness, for the persons who have been supervised by the state bodies. The study aims to identify possibilities of updating the legislation for its compliance with the CCR decisions and with the ECtHR jurisprudence. The evidentiary process of interception of communications is an important means by which state bodies investigate complex criminal activities, but it involves an interference with the right to privacy, so it is necessary to have substantive and procedural safeguards to prevent arbitrariness from state bodies and to ensure adequate protection of the right to privacy. In the first part of the study, a presentation is carried out of the evolution of the Romanian legislation and an analysis of the guarantees regulated by it. In the second part, the ECtHR jurisprudence is presented regarding the guarantees that must be regulated by national legislation to respect the right to privacy and to avoid unjustified interference. In the last part of the paper, the substantive and procedural guarantees offered by national legislation and jurisprudence are presented and an analysis of their compliance with the jurisprudence of the ECtHR is carried out. In the conclusions of the paper, two proposals for updating the Romanian Criminal Procedure Code and Law no. 51/1991 on Romania's national security are introduced.

Keywords

• wire tapping
• limitation of the right to privacy
• history of legislation in the field of wire tapping /telephone tapping
• technical surveillance
• national security warrant