Judgment concerning Italy
In the case of Grande Oriente d’Italia v. Italy the Court held that there had been a violation of the right to respect for private and family life.
The case concerned a search of a Masonic association’s premises ordered in the context of a parliamentary inquiry into the Mafia. Paper and digital documents, in particular a list of names and personal data of more than 6,000 members of the association, were seized during the search.
The Court found that there had been a lack of evidence or a reasonable suspicion of involvement in the matter being investigated which would have been sufficient to justify such a wide-ranging and indeterminate measure. Nor had the shortcomings in the search order been offset by sufficient counterbalancing guarantees, for example by an independent and impartial review.