Communicated on 29 October 2018

FOURTH SECTION

Application no. 51716/15 József PARAIZS against Hungary lodged on 13 October 2015

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The applicant was the attorney of a person charged in criminal proceedings. On 1 March 2011 the Military Bench of the Budapest Regional Court ordered the search of the premises of his law firm. In the course of this, as required by law, a public prosecutor was present; and the authority seized some documents and the hard drive of the applicant ’ s computer. He then brought a civil action claiming that the search had damaged his reputation and breached the lawyer-client privilege. On 3 December 2013 the Budapest Surroundings High Court rejected his claim stating that the search had been ordered and executed in compliance with the law. On appeal, on 5 February 2015 the Budapest Court of Appeal upheld the decision. In review proceedings, on 1 July 2015 the Kúria held that the interference with the applicant ’ s rights was reasonable and justified.

It observed that the procedural guarantees in section 149(6) of the Code of Criminal Procedure were respected, the seizure of the hard drive was ordered by a court, the seizure was carried out in the statutory presence of a prosecutor, done by a sworn-in IT expert, the hard drive was kept at the premises of the Public Prosecutor ’ s Office only for a day which was necessary to retrieve the documents indicated by the court order, the Public Prosecutor was obliged by law to respect the privacy of data, there was no indication or allegation that anybody else could have undue access to the data; and the hard drive was then restored in the applicant ’ s computer the next day.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Has there been a violation of the applicant ’ s right to respect for his “home”, contrary to Article 8 of the Convention (see, inter alia, Buck v. Germany , no. 41604/98, § 45, ECHR 2005 IV, and André and Another v. France , no. 18603/03, §§ 41 and 42, 24 July 2008)?

2. In particular, was the search and seizure carried with sufficient safeguards against interference with professional secrecy (see Smirnov v. Russia , no. 71362/01, § 48, 7 June 2007)?