The campaign This Affects You reacts on the dissemination of secret audio-record

The campaign This Affects You responds to dissemination of the secret phone-call records between the director general of the TV Company Rustavi 2 and an opposition political leader in media. 

The member NGOs of the Campaign are concerned with the dissemination of another secret recording of personal conversation. The Campaign calls on the government to take concrete steps to fight against the illegal secret surveillance and ear dropping.

 

The secret surveillance has been systemic problem for years. By now, the government could not ensure effective investigation of crimes or the substantial reform of existing legal system regarding the surveillance, in order to protect everyone’s private life. 

We again remind the government that on April 14, 2016 the Constitutional Court of Georgia fully satisfied the lawsuit of the Campaign member NGOs and admitted that existing secret surveillance and ear dropping system is anti-constitutional. The Constitutional Court ruled that the direct access to the phone surveillance through so called two-key system, the direct access to citizens’ internet communications and information about the users, their location and the information about devices used for the communication by the State Security Service and possession of all that data for 2 years without  court’s consent is anti-constitutional.

The Parliament of Georgia has not made relevant reforms in order to execute the court’s decision until now. Besides, in frames of the Campaign the package of reforms was prepared, which totally corresponds to the idea behind the court’s decision and is the only real alternative to acting anti-constitutional legislation. Unfortunately, current Parliament did not initiate the bill.

Based on the above mentioned, we call on the government: 

• To promptly, substantially and effectively investigate the fact of  obtaining and dissemination of the secret audio-records;

•  To change the existing law in order to protect every individual’s private life and reform the anti-constitutional norms of secret surveillance. 

• To create independent investigation mechanism, which will investigate the crimes committed by law enforcement bodies and other state institutions. 

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