Lithuania’s top court to hold meeting on sanctioning wiretapping

The move follows the publication by BNS of data showing that the National Courts Administration of Lithuania satisfies 99 percent of all prosecutors’ requests to wiretap phone conversations or access call detail records.

“The data collected by the National Courts Administration encouraged us to perform a more detailed analysis of what these figures reflect. Why is there such a large proportion of satisfied requests and whether the process is clearly regulated by the laws? We must establish whether human rights are respected in all wiretapping cases and whether persons are properly informed about the control of information transmitted by electronic networks and whether conditions are created for people to defend their rights,” Norkus was quoted as saying in a statement.

In his words, covert surveillance measures “let us investigate and prevent very serious and dangerous crimes”, and only a comprehensive analysis of the circumstances of a specific case can let us decide whether such measures were reasonable and proportionate.

According to the National Courts Administration of Lithuania, district courts processed 12,332 requests on accessing information transmitted via electronic communication networks. The requests were fully satisfied in 11,975 cases, and partially satisfied in 203 cases. The prosecutor requests were rejected in 154 instances, which makes 1.2 percent of all requests.

Critics say the figures raise concern that courts take insufficient care of people’s privacy protection.