The Slovenian constitutional court issued a decision on 8 December 2005 ascertaining that, in 1996, SOVA (Slovenian intelligence agency) illegally performed eavesdropping to a suspected person later sentenced for unjustified production and trading of drugs. The most aggravating evidences for the defendant were the telephone conversation recordings that SOVA made for the police.

The eavesdropping and recording of telephone conversations were performed in a way that did not exclude the possibility of abuses (montage, erasing, later adding of recordings) and the defence could not examine the transcriptions of the telephone conversations as the documents were labelled as confidential.

From 1993 till 11 April 1997, on the basis of a confidential agreement, SOVA eavesdropped and recorded telephone conversations for the police, which did not have adequate equipment for that.

The Slovenian Constitutional Court wrote : "With the eavesdropping and recording of telephone conversations that was performed by SOVA and not the police, the complainant's right to privacy from article 35 and right to privacy of correspondence from article 37 were violated." ... "the problems the repressive bodies have with technical equipment should not be the reason for such intolerable violation of privacy and privacy of correspondence and other means of communication. Violations of human rights are not allowed in the criminal procedure, not even in the case of "extreme necessity"."

An intriguing fact is that there was no report about that decision of the constitutional court in the major Slovenian media.

The whole text of the decision (in Slovenian language only)
http://odlocitve.us-rs.si/usrs/us-odl.nsf/o/2B1FA4ECCB2DFEE5C12570D900...

(Contribution by Aljaz Marn Privacyblog.net - Slovenia )