In the case of Niemietz v. Germany...,
The European Court of Human Rights, sitting, in accordance with Article 43 (art. 43) of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms ("the Convention")(... and the relevant provisions of the Rules of Court, as a Chamber composed of the following judges:
Mr R. Ryssdal, President,
Mr R. Bernhardt,
Mr L.-E. Pettiti,
Mr B. Walsh,
Mr C. Russo,
Mr A. Spielmann,
Mr N. Valticos,
Mr A.N. Loizou,
Sir John Freeland,
and also of Mr M.-A. Eissen, Registrar, and Mr H. Petzold, Deputy Registrar,
Having deliberated in private on 29 May and 23 November 1992,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on the last-mentioned date:
PROCEDURE
The Commission's request referred to Articles 44 and 48 (art. 44, art. 48) and to the declaration whereby Germany recognised the compulsory jurisdiction of the Court (Article 46) (art. 46). The object of the request was to obtain a decision as to whether the facts of the case disclosed a breach by the respondent State of its obligations under Article 8 (art. 8) of the Convention.
On 2 April the Commission filed a number of documents which the Registrar had sought from it on the President's instructions. A further document was filed by the applicant on 20 May.
There appeared before the Court:
- for the Government
Mr J. Meyer-Ladewig, Ministerialdirigent,
Federal Ministry of Justice, Agent,
Ms E. Chwolik-Lanfermann, Richterin am Oberlandesgericht,
Federal Ministry of Justice, Adviser;
- for the Commission
Mr A. Weitzel, Delegate;
- the applicant
Mr G. Niemietz, in person.
The Court heard addresses by Mr Meyer-Ladewig for the Government, by Mr Weitzel for the Commission and by the applicant, as well as replies to its questions.
AS TO THE FACTS
I. THE PARTICULAR CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CASE
"On 10.12.1985 the trial against Mr [J.] will take place before you. We, the Anti-clerical Working Group of the Freiburg Bunte Liste, protest most strongly about these proceedings.
In the FRG, the Church, on the basis of the Hitler concordat and in violation of the State's duty to maintain neutrality, enjoys most extensive privileges. As a result, every non-Christian citizen of this State has to suffer disadvantages and daily annoyance. Among other things, the FRG is the only State which acts as Church-tax collector. It requires employers, whether they be Christians or not, to pay over Church tax for their Christian employees and thus relieve the Church of financial administrative work. [J.] has, for years, courageously and consistently refused to support the financing of the Church in this way and has made an appropriate arrangement whereby the Church tax of his Christian employees is paid without his own involvement.
This attempt - in a State which counts the separation of State and Church among its basic principles - to insist upon just such a separation has not only exposed [J.] to persistent vexation and interferences on the part of State authorities, culminating in the tax office employing coercive measures, such as attachment, to collect from him Church tax which his employees had already paid a long time previously. It has in addition involved him - when he called these underhand methods by their name - in the present proceedings for alleged insulting behaviour.
Were it your task as the competent judge to conduct an unbiased examination of this 'case of insulting behaviour', then it must be said that you have not only failed to carry out this task, but also abused your office in order to try - by means which give a warning and a reminder of the darkest chapters of German legal history - to break the backbone of an unloved opponent of the Church. It was with extreme indignation that we learned of the compulsory psychiatric examination which was conducted on your instructions, and to which [J.] has had to submit in the meantime. We shall use every avenue open to us, in particular our international contacts, to bring to public notice this action of yours, which is incompatible with the principles of a democratic State subscribing to the rule of law.
We shall follow the further course of the proceedings against [J.] and expect you to abandon the path of terrorisation which you have embarked upon, and to reach the only decision appropriate in this case - an acquittal."
Until the end of 1985 certain of the mail for the Bunte Liste, which had as its address for correspondence only the post-office box number that had been given in the letter to Judge Miosga, had been delivered to the office (Bürogemeinschaft) of the applicant and a colleague of his; the latter had also been active on behalf of the party and had acted for it professionally.
"Preliminary investigations against Klaus Wegner concerning Article 185 of the Criminal Code
Decision
The search of the following residential and business premises for documents which reveal the identity of 'Klaus Wegener' [sic] and the seizure of such documents is ordered.
1.. Office premises shared by the lawyers Gottfried Niemietz and ...,
2.. Home (including adjoining rooms and cars) of Ms [D.] ...,
3.. Home (including adjoining rooms and cars) of Ms [G.]
Reasons
On 9 December 1985 a letter insulting Judge Miosga of the Freising District Court was sent by telefax from the Freiburg post office. It was sent by the Anti-clerical Working Group of the Freiburg Bunte Liste. The letter was signed by one Klaus Wegener.
Until now it has not been possible to identify the signatory. The Freiburg Bunte Liste could not be contacted by mail otherwise than through a box number. Until the end of 1985 such mail was forwarded to the office of Niemietz and ..., and since the start of 1986 to Ms [D.]. It has therefore to be assumed that documents throwing light on the identity of Klaus Wegener can be found at the premises of the above-mentioned persons.
Furthermore, it is to be assumed that there are such documents in the home of Ms [G.], the Chairwoman of the Freiburg Bunte Liste.
For these reasons, it is to be expected that evidence will be found in the course of a search of the premises indicated in this decision."
Those conducting the search examined four filing cabinets with data concerning clients, three files marked respectively "BL", "C.W. -Freiburg District Court ..." and "G. - Hamburg Regional Court" and three defence files marked respectively "K.W. - Karlsruhe District Court ...", "Niemietz et al. - Freiburg District Court ..." and "D. - Freiburg District Court". According to the applicant, the office's client index was also looked at and one of the files in question was its "Wegner defence file". Those searching neither found the documents they were seeking nor seized any materials. In the proceedings before the Commission, the applicant stated that he had been able to put aside in time documents pointing to the identity of Klaus Wegner and had subsequently destroyed them.
In a reply of 27 January 1987, the President of the Munich District Court stated that the search was proportionate because the letter in question constituted a serious interference with a pending case; hence no legal action on the protest was necessary.
The Federal Constitutional Court also found that the Munich I Regional Court's decision of 27 March 1987 that the applicant's appeal was inadmissible was not objectionable in terms of constitutional law. Furthermore, as regards the actual execution of the warrant, Mr Niemietz had not exhausted the remedy available to him under section 23(1) of the Introductory Act to the Courts Organisation Act (Einführungsgesetz zum Gerichtsverfassungsgesetz).
II. RELEVANT DOMESTIC LAW
An unauthorised breach of secrecy by a lawyer is punishable by imprisonment for a maximum of one year or a fine (Article 203 para. 1(3) of the Criminal Code). A lawyer is entitled to refuse to give testimony concerning any matter confided to him in a professional capacity (Article 53 para. 1(2) and (3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure). The last-mentioned provisions, in conjunction with Article 97, prohibit, with certain exceptions, the seizure of correspondence between lawyer and client.
III. CASE-LAW OF THE COURT OF JUSTICE OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES
"Since the applicant has also relied on the requirements stemming from the fundamental right to the inviolability of the home, it should be observed that, although the existence of such a right must be recognized in the Community legal order as a principle common to the laws of the Member States in regard to the private dwellings of natural persons, the same is not true in regard to undertakings, because there are not inconsiderable divergences between the legal systems of the Member States in regard to the nature and degree of protection afforded to business premises against intervention by the public authorities.
No other inference is to be drawn from Article 8(1) (art. 8-1) of the European Convention on Human Rights which provides that: 'Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence'. The protective scope of that article is concerned with the development of man's personal freedom and may not therefore be extended to business premises. Furthermore, it should be noted that there is no case-law of the European Court of Human Rights on that subject.
None the less, in all the legal systems of the Member States, any intervention by the public authorities in the sphere of private activities of any person, whether natural or legal, must have a legal basis and be justified on the grounds laid down by law, and, consequently, those systems provide, albeit in different forms, protection against arbitrary or disproportionate intervention. The need for such protection must be recognized as a general principle of Community law. In that regard, it should be pointed out that the Court has held that it has the power to determine whether measures of investigation taken by the Commission under the ECSC Treaty are excessive (judgment of 14 December 1962 in Joined Cases 5 to 11 and 13 to 15/62 San Michele and Others v. Commission [1962] ECR 449)."
This statement was affirmed in the same court's judgments of 17 October 1989 in Case 85/87 Dow Benelux v. Commission [1989] ECR 3137 at 3157 and Joined Cases 97 to 99/87 Dow Chemical Ibérica and Others v. Commission [1989] ECR 3165 at 3185-6.
PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THE COMMISSION
In its report of 29 May 1991 (Article 31) (art. 31), the Commission expressed the unanimous opinion that there had been a violation of Article 8 (art. 8) of the Convention and that no separate issue arose under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (P1-1). The full text of the Commission's opinion is reproduced as an annex to this judgment....
FINAL SUBMISSIONS MADE TO THE COURT
The applicant, for his part, requested the Court to hold that the search of his office had constituted a breach of the Convention.
AS TO THE LAW
I. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 8 (art. 8) OF THE CONVENTION
"1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.2.. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others."
This submission was accepted by the Commission, on the basis that the search constituted an unjustified interference with the applicant's private life and home.
A. Was there an "interference"?
There appears, furthermore, to be no reason of principle why this understanding of the notion of "private life" should be taken to exclude activities of a professional or business nature since it is, after all, in the course of their working lives that the majority of people have a significant, if not the greatest, opportunity of developing relationships with the outside world. This view is supported by the fact that, as was rightly pointed out by the Commission, it is not always possible to distinguish clearly which of an individual's activities form part of his professional or business life and which do not. Thus, especially in the case of a person exercising a liberal profession, his work in that context may form part and parcel of his life to such a degree that it becomes impossible to know in what capacity he is acting at a given moment of time.
To deny the protection of Article 8 (art. 8) on the ground that the measure complained of related only to professional activities - as the Government suggested should be done in the present case - could moreover lead to an inequality of treatment, in that such protection would remain available to a person whose professional and non-professional activities were so intermingled that there was no means of distinguishing between them. In fact, the Court has not heretofore drawn such distinctions: it concluded that there had been an interference with private life even where telephone tapping covered both business and private calls (see the Huvig v. France judgment of 24 April 1990, Series A no. 176-B, p. 41, para. 8, and p. 52, para. 25); and, where a search was directed solely against business activities, it did not rely on that fact as a ground for excluding the applicability of Article 8 (art. 8) under the head of "private life" (see the Chappell v. the United Kingdom judgment of 30 March 1989, Series A no. 152-A, pp. 12-13, para. 26, and pp. 21-22, para. 51.)
In this context also, it may not always be possible to draw precise distinctions, since activities which are related to a profession or business may well be conducted from a person's private residence and activities which are not so related may well be carried on in an office or commercial premises. A narrow interpretation of the words "home" and "domicile" could therefore give rise to the same risk of inequality of treatment as a narrow interpretation of the notion of "private life" (see paragraph 29 above).
B. Was the interference "in accordance with the law"?
C. Did the interference have a legitimate aim or aims?
D. Was the interference "necessary in a democratic society"?
It is true that the offence in connection with which the search was effected, involving as it did not only an insult to but also an attempt to bring pressure on a judge, cannot be classified as no more than minor. On the other hand, the warrant was drawn in broad terms, in that it ordered a search for and seizure of "documents", without any limitation, revealing the identity of the author of the offensive letter; this point is of special significance where, as in Germany, the search of a lawyer's office is not accompanied by any special procedural safeguards, such as the presence of an independent observer. More importantly, having regard to the materials that were in fact inspected, the search impinged on professional secrecy to an extent that appears disproportionate in the circumstances; it has, in this connection, to be recalled that, where a lawyer is involved, an encroachment on professional secrecy may have repercussions on the proper administration of justice and hence on the rights guaranteed by Article 6 (art. 6) of the Convention. In addition, the attendant publicity must have been capable of affecting adversely the applicant's professional reputation, in the eyes both of his existing clients and of the public at large.
E. Conclusion
II. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 1 OF PROTOCOL No. 1 (P1-1)
"Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law.
The preceding provisions shall not, however, in any way impair the right of a State to enforce such laws as it deems necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest or to secure the payment of taxes or other contributions or penalties."
III. APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 50 (art. 50) OF THE CONVENTION
"If the Court finds that a decision or a measure taken by a legal authority or any other authority of a High Contracting Party is completely or partially in conflict with the obligations arising from the ... Convention, and if the internal law of the said Party allows only partial reparation to be made for the consequences of this decision or measure, the decision of the Court shall, if necessary, afford just satisfaction to the injured party."
The applicant has, in the first place, not established that the breach of Article 8 (art. 8) caused him pecuniary damage. If and in so far as it may have occasioned non-pecuniary damage, the Court considers, like the Delegate of the Commission, that its finding of a violation constitutes of itself sufficient just satisfaction therefor. Finally, although Mr Niemietz stated at the hearing that his request extended to his costs and expenses referable to the proceedings in Germany and in Strasbourg, he has supplied no particulars of that expenditure.
FOR THESE REASONS, THE COURT UNANIMOUSLY
Done in English and in French, and delivered at a public hearing in the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg, on 16 December 1992.
Rolv RYSSDAL
President
Marc-André EISSEN
Registrar
Note 1 The case is numbered 72/1991/324/396. The first number is the case's position on the list of cases referred to the Court in the relevant year (second number). The last two numbers indicate the case's position on the list of cases referred to the Court since its creation and on the list of the corresponding originating applications to the Commission. [Back] Note 2 As amended by Article 11 of Protocol No. 8 (P8-11), which came into force on 1 January 1990. [Back] Note 3 Note by the Registrar: for practical reasons this annex will appear only with the printed version of the judgment (volume 251- B of Series A of the Publications of the Court), but a copy of the Commission's report is available from the registry. [Back]