Garantías constitucionales en la investigación tecnológica del delito: Previsión legal y calidad de la Ley

Abstract:The guarantee of the right to privacy is one of the big challenges ofany modern system of law, and thus, it is also of our criminal court proceedings. For a long time, the Spanish Criminal Procedural Act, has lacked a regulation in relation to investigative acts that have been originated as a consequence of the appearance of modern technologies, and this has created not few procedural new problems. The legal reform undertaken by the Act 13/2015, dated October 5th, aims at solving this situation of lack of sufficient legislation. We study in this paper the demands arisen from the rule of law principle with the intention of determining whether the new Act 13/2015 properly defines the modalities and the scope of the power attributed to authorities, so as to afford individuals with an adequate protection against arbitrary exercise of authority. We intend to determine to what extent, and under what circumstances, intromissions in the constitutional rights recognized by Section 18 of the Spanish Constitution carried out as part of the above mentioned criminal investigations would be legitimate.Resumen:La garantía del derecho a la esfera privada es uno de los grandes desafíosde los ordenamientos jurídicos en la actualidad y, por tanto,también de nuestro proceso penal. La Ley de Enjuiciamiento Criminalespañola, durante mucho tiempo, ha estado huérfana de regulacióncon respecto a los actos de investigación nacidos con la aparición delas nuevas tecnologías, lo que ha ocasionado no pocos problemas procesales.La reforma llevada a cabo por la Ley Orgánica 13/2015, de 5de octubre, trata de paliar esta situación de insuficiencia normativa.Se estudian en este trabajo las exigencias derivadas del principio delegalidad con objeto de determinar, si la nueva Ley define las modalidadesy la extensión del ejercicio del poder otorgado con la suficienteprecisión para aportar al individuo una protección adecuada contra laarbitrariedad. Se trata de determinar hasta dónde y en qué supuestosserán legítimas las intromisiones en el ámbito de los derechos fundamentalesreconocidos en el art. 18 de la Constitución española comoconsecuencia de la realización de determinadas diligencias de investigaciónpenal.Abstract:The guarantee of the right to privacy is one of the big challenges ofany modern system of law, and thus, it is also of our criminal court proceedings. For a long time, the Spanish Criminal Procedural Act, has lacked a regulation in relation to investigative acts that have been originated as a consequence of the appearance of modern technologies, and this has created not few procedural new problems. The legal reform undertaken by the Act 13/2015, dated October 5th, aims at solving this situation of lack of sufficient legislation. We study in this paper the demands arisen from the rule of law principle with the intention of determining whether the new Act 13/2015 properly defines the modalities and the scope of the power attributed to authorities, so as to afford individuals with an adequate protection against arbitrary exercise of authority. We intend to determine to what extent, and under what circumstances, intromissions in the constitutional rights recognized by Section 18 of the Spanish Constitution carried out as part of the above mentioned criminal investigations would be legitimate