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RASK's court victory ensures fairer use of surveillance data in the future.

Case

RASK successfully represented a client in the Supreme Court in proceedings involving the client’s appeal against a court ruling. The dispute concerned the issue of whether the lawfulness of surveillance activities may be contested when a criminal investigation is still ongoing and has not been completed (i.e. at the pre-trial stage).

According to decision of the Supreme Court, the lawfulness of surveillance activities may from now on also be contested during pre-trial proceedings; that is, before the court has been able to examine and assess the evidence collected during the surveillance activities. This decision is important in terms of procedural law, as it ensures, among other things, that the suspect has the right to contest the use of the evidence collected by an investigative body before the unlawfully collected evidence (e.g. unjustified interception of phone calls) can influence the conscience of the court.

As a result of this new decision, the quality of evidence collection by investigative bodies should improve. In particular, investigative bodies will have to take into account that unlawfully collected evidence may not find its way to the desk of the judge.