AFFAIRE KACZMAREK c. POLOGNE

• Judgment Date: 22 February 2024
• ECLI: ECLI:CE:ECHR:2024:0222JUD001697414
• Date: 22 February 2024
• Application Number: 16974/14
• Court: First Section (European Court of Human Rights)
• Respondent State: Polonia
• Applied Rules: 8;8-1;8-2;41

FIRST SECTION

CASE OF KACZMAREK v. POLAND

(Application no. 16974/14)

JUDGMENT

Art 8 • Private life • Correspondence • Disclosure of a recording of applicant’s telephone conversation during a press conference and storage and retention of data obtained during a covert surveillance operation of which she was not a subject • Interferences not “in accordance with the law”

Prepared by the Registry. Does not bind the Court.

STRASBOURG

22 February 2024

This judgment will become final in the circumstances set out in Article 44 § 2 of the Convention. It may be subject to editorial revision.

In the case of Kaczmarek v. Poland,

The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting as a Chamber composed of:

Marko Bošnjak, President,
Alena Poláčková,
Krzysztof Wojtyczek,
Lətif Hüseynov,
Péter Paczolay,
Ivana Jelić,
Gilberto Felici, judges,
and Ilse Freiwirth, Section Registrar,

Having regard to:

the application (no.16974/14) against the Republic of Poland lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by a Polish national, MsHonorata Kaczmarek (“the applicant”), on 19February 2014;

the decision to give notice to the Polish Government (“the Government”) of the complaints under Articles 8 and 13 and to declare inadmissible the remainder of the application;

the parties’ observations;

Having deliberated in private on 28 March 2023 and 6 February 2024,

Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on the last‑mentioned date:

INTRODUCTION

1.The case concerns the applicant’s complaints under Article8 of the Convention about the disclosure of a recording of her telephone conversation during a press conference. It also concerns the retention and storage of material gathered during a secret surveillance operation.

THE FACTS

2.The applicant was born in 1960 and lives in Gdynia. She was represented by Mr A. Pietryka, a lawyer practising in Warsaw.

3.The Government were represented by their Agent, Mr J.Sobczak and subsequently Ms A.Kozińska-Makowska, of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

1. BACKGROUND TO THE CASE

4.The applicant is the wife of a Polish politician, J.K., who at the time of the events in question held the post of Minister of the Interior.

5.In 2007 the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (Centralne Biuro Antykorupcyjne – “the CAB”) and the Warsaw Regional Prosecutor were investigating allegations of trading in influence. In the course of those proceedings, an entrapment operation using an agent provocateur in the Ministry of Agriculture was planned for 6 July 2007. However, the information about the planned operation was leaked, the operation failed and the so‑called “land scandal” (afera gruntowa) broke out. Several senior politicians, including the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of the Interior, were involved. The applicant’s husband was allegedly responsible for warning the Minister of Agriculture about the planned operation. As aconsequence, he was removed from...