By Elias Hazou
The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that telecommunications data may be used as evidence in the trial of former Paphos mayor Savvas Vergas and three others accused of threatening witnesses and obstruction of justice.
In its judgment, the top court rejected a challenge to the law allowing police to retrieve personal telecommunications data for investigating suspected crimes.
The challenge, in the form of a petition for certiorari, had been mounted by a defence attorney of defendants in the ‘Paphos SMS trial’, as it has come to be known.
Former mayor Savvas Vergas, his former assistant Maria Solomonidou, her husband Constantinos Sifantos and her father Elias Solomonides face charges of sending threatening texts to daily Politis’ Paphos correspondent Costas Nanos, municipal employee Androulla Efthymiou and current Paphos mayor Phedonas Phedonos.
The transmissions included death threats.
The text recipients were material witnesses in a case where construction company Aristo Developers was suspected of falsifying land-zoning blueprints in relation to the demarcation of plots at Skali, Paphos. The defendants in that criminal case were cleared of all charges earlier this year.
In December 2014, defence lawyer Michalis Pikis filed an appeal at the Supreme Court asking for the dismissal of a court order allowing authorities to access the incriminating telecommunications data.
Pikis cited an April 8, 2014 ruling by the EU Court of Justice declaring EU Directive 24/2006 – governing data retention – as void on the basis that it violates human rights, especially the protection of private life and personal data.
Since Cyprus has transposed that directive into law, he argued, that law should also be deemed void.
Making another connection, he further argued that legitimate exceptions to the right to privacy cited in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights are identical to those cited in the European Convention on Human Rights and in articles 15 and 17 of Cyprus’ constitution.
But in its ruling, the top court rejected the rationale. Reading out the verdict, Supreme Court judge Antonis Liatsos said the provisions of the EU Charter are not applicable in the case at hand, “given that we are not dealing with the implementation of EU law, but domestic law.”
Liatsos said the constitution, as amended, permits authorities here to access personal data “when this is necessary for the security of the Republic, as well as for averting, investigating or prosecuting serious criminal offences.”
Now, the Supreme Court’s decision effectively allows for the resumption of the criminal trial of the four defendants before Paphos District Court.
Police were able to link Solomonidou and Vergas to the messages by establishing that the phone from which the texts were sent had been purchased by Vergas, who said he gave it to Solomonidou as a gift.
Telecommunications records also showed that the two had been in close proximity to each other at the time the messages were sent.
