Brno - The misuse of criminal proceedings is nothing new in the Czech Republic. According to the Constitutional Court, though, the state authorities are guilty of the same transgression by commissioning wiretapping that would retrospectively provide them with incriminating material as a basis for prosecution.
It is another proof that wiretapping in the Czech Republic is still extremely murky business.
In this week's ruling, the Constitutional Court judges criticized the state authorities for illegal procedures employed by both police and judiciary when tapping the phone calls by the attorney Jaroslav Čapek.
Mr Čapek is representing a Czech aristocrat, Mr František Oldřich Kinský, in a restitution case involving property worth billions of Czech Crowns.
READ MORE: Count Kinský demands justice over police bugging
Absolutely unacceptable
The judges castigated the authorities' methods, pointing out that in civil proceedings the state plays the role of the defendant which puts it on equal footing with other parties to the dispute.
"To protect these interests, the state is being supported with both personnel and financial means from the national budget," said the Judge, Mr Jiří Nykodým.
If such a party starts criminal proceedings against Mr Jaroslav Čapek, as it did in this case where Mr Čapek is fighting the state for the restitution of property, it would seem the state is trying to improve its position, said the Constitutional Court judges.
"At the very least, the state is getting information through criminal investigation authorities and other elements of power structures, unless it is trying to bully the other party involved in the legal dispute. Such behaviour is absolutely unacceptable in a democratic society and needs to be deplored," the Constitutional Court judges pointed out.
Warning for democracy
The case of criminal proceedings against Mr Jaroslav Čapek is not unique in the Czech Republic. The judges added: "Besides the state authorities, there are other parties to the proceedings abusing the institution of criminal complaint to influence the issue of the trial."
Although the criminal proceedings against Mr Jaroslav Čapek were stopped, and justly so according to the Constitutional Court judges, his case is alerting.
"It's a warning for democracy in this country that the case was only stopped after a massive, probably very expensive and completely unnecessary criminal suit that should not have started at all," the judge Jiří Nykodým pointed out.
And it is unacceptable to have a court authorizing wiretapping in a role of a mere helper to the prosecution in such cases, where the criminal proceedings are initiated uniquely on the basis of a criminal complaint, without any specific proof or circumstantial evidence.
"The Court always has to remain impartial," the Constitutional Court judges said.
"A criminal complaint on its own is not enough to order bugging somebody's phone," the judge Nykodým declared.
The rules are clear now
Mr Jaroslav Čapek found about the police tap on his phone by accident. He says this week's ruling by the Constitutional Court judges gives clear procedural rules for the police applying for authorization of wiretapping.
According to Mr Čapek, the special criminal investigation team known codenamed Majetek (Property) might have been illegally monitoring several other people.
The lawyer added that in the past his clients thought their phone was bugged, but that there was no specific evidence for the claim.
