European Court of Human Rights : Sedletska v. Ukraine

The right for journalists to protect their sources also prohibits the judicial authorities to have access to journalists’ data stored on the server of a mobile telephone operator. That is the essence of a judgment recently delivered by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The ECtHR found a violation of the protection of journalistic sources as part of the right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). In an early stage of the procedure the ECtHR, by way of an interim measure, had already requested the Ukrainian authorities to abstain from accessing any of the data received from the journalist’s mobile telephone operator on the basis of two court orders that were complained about in this case