Judgment concerning Italy
In the case of Contrada v. Italy (no. 4), the Court declared the complaint concerning the search of the applicant’s home inadmissible for failure to exhaust domestic remedies and held that there had been a violation of the right to respect for private life and correspondence with regard to the interception and transcription of the applicant’s telephone communications.
The case concerned the lawfulness of the interception of the applicant’s telephone conversations and the search of his home and other properties (measures ordered in the context of murder proceedings in which the applicant was not directly involved). The Court found that Italian law did not afford adequate and effective guarantees against abuse to individuals who had been subjected to an interception measure but who, since they were not suspected or accused of involvement in an offence, were not parties to the proceedings.