At its 31st session, the Government submitted a proposal for the Constitutional Court to adopt a decision to stop the procedure for assessing the constitutionality of Article 175, the Law on Electronic Telecommunications, adopted on 21st June, 2017.
“According to this opinion adopted by the Government of the Republic of Macedonia, the Law on the Interception of Communications may be subject to evaluation in relation to its constitutionality, but not Article 175 from the Law separately”, reads the Government’s statement.
Article 175 allows the Administration for Security and Counter-Intelligence (UBK) to wiretap directly through telecommunications operators.
In June, the Constitutional Court decided to initiate a procedure for determining the constitutionality of this article, after the majority of judges at the session expressed suspected that as the Law was regulated, through Articles 168 and the contested 175, the secret police (UBK) and the Ministry of the Interior are allowed arbitrary uncontrolled monitoring of communications through telecommunications operators.
Otherwise, repealing or amending Article 175 of the Law on Electronic Communications is one of the recommendations in the reports of German expert, Reinhard Priebe, the one from 2015 and the last report from this year.
