20 Apr Keeping records of prisoners’ correspondence on a judicial IT server was contrary to the Convention

In the case of Nuh Uzun and Others v. Turkey (application no. 49341/18 and 13 other applications) the European Court of Human Rights held

• unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life/right to respect for correspondence) of the European Convention on Human Rights;
• by a majority (6 votes to 1), that the finding of a violation constituted in itself sufficient just satisfaction in respect of the non-pecuniary damage sustained by the applicants.

The case mainly concerned the uploading of the applicants’ correspondence, while they were in detention, onto the National Judicial Network Server (Ulusal Yargı Ağı Bilişim Sistemi – “UYAP”).

The Court considered that the applicants’ private correspondence was liable to contain personal information falling within the scope of protection of their private life. Where personal data in particular were concerned it was essential to have clear, detailed rules governing the scope and application of such measures, together with minimum safeguards aimed at preserving the integrity and confidentiality of data and procedures for their destruction, in order to provide the persons concerned with sufficient guarantees. The Court found that the uploading of the correspondence of remand and convicted prisoners onto the UYAP server stemmed directly and specifically from an instruction issued by the Ministry of Justice on 10 October 2016 and reissued on 1 March 2017. It noted that the instruction had been addressed to the public prosecutors and prison authorities. 

The documents in question were therefore unpublished internal documents which as a matter of principle did not have binding force. In the Court’s view, texts of this kind, which were not issued under any rule-making powers, could not be regarded as “law” of sufficient “quality” for the purposes of the Court’s case-law. Consequently, the interference with the applicants’ right to respect for their private life and correspondence could not be said to have been “in accordance with the law” within the meaning of Article 8 of the Convention.

References from the official website of the European Court of Human Rights