Brussels, 08/12/2008 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 4 December, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled against the United Kingdom for having kept genetic information on two citizens found innocent by the justice system.
The Court upheld the case brought by two British nationals, who had objected to the authorities of their country keeping their digital and genetic information further to wrangles with the law in 2001. One of them was charged with attempted robbery at the age of 11, and later acquitted, and the other was prosecuted in a case of harassment towards his partner, which was dismissed. The United Kingdom is the only European country which authorises the unlimited storage of DNA profiles in the event of suspected criminal activity. The United Kingdom has one of the largest genetic databases in the world, with more than 4.5 million entries, 850,000 of which relate to people with no criminal record. These include, amongst others, people who have been acquitted of crimes, people held and then freed and the victims of violent crimes. The 17 European judges of the Grand Chamber unanimously ruled that to keep digital fingerprints, biological samples and DNA profiles of people suspected of having committed crimes, but who were not found guilty, does not constitute a fair balance between the conflicting public and private interests at stake. In this event, the judges continued, keeping this DNA information is a disproportionate infringement of the law respecting privacy and cannot be seen as justifiable in a democratic society, the ECHR explained, referring to articles 8 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The risk of stigmatisation is particularly worrying for the people in question, even though they have been found not guilty, said the Court, and is especially damaging in the case of minors. This means that London now has until March next year to destroy the samples or to prove that it needs to keep hold of them, for example in the case of people who have been suspected on a number of occasions, but not found guilty, of sexual or aggressive crimes or terrorism. Although the United Kingdom has been specifically targeted by the ECHR in this case, this ruling could become case law for other European countries, such as France.
In the United Kingdom, the human rights defence organisation Liberty has welcomed this verdict, stating that it will "require the UK government to reconsider its policies". Directly addressing the Labour government of Gordon Brown, the Conservative MEP Syed Kamall described the judgement as "a victory for the thousands of innocent people who, thanks to the policies of this government, are being treated like criminals every single day". British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith spoke of her "disappointment" at the Court's decision. "DNA and digital fingerprints are vital to fight crime, they provide the police with more than 3,500 pieces of data a month", she said, adding that the legislation in force would be kept in place until the government had had time to study the contents of the ruling. (B.C./transl.fl)