Brussels, 10/02/2009 (Agence Europe) - In a judgment of 10 February, the Court of Justice of the European Communities ruled that the data retention directive was correctly adopted on the basis of the EC Treaty. This invalidates the case put forward by Ireland that the directive seeks police and judicial cooperation ends and could not, therefore, be adopted on the basis of the EC Treaty.
The Court of Justice states that directive 2006/24/EC arrangements refer only to measures to be put in place by companies, in particular those in electronic communications, for the retention of data for a certain period of time. If the final aim is to be able, if necessary, to transmit these data to police authorities, arrangements for this are specifically excluded from the directive. The Court says, then, that the EU Treaty cannot be invoked even though it relates to all “third pillar” legislation (case C-301/06).
When directive 2006/24/EC was being drafted, several member states, including Ireland, supported the adoption of a framework decision under the EC Treaty, given its judicial aspect. Parliament and the Council, however, went with the Commission position and based the directive on Article 95 of the EC Treaty. This was all the more necessary, they said, in that the directive affected two other pre-existing directives; framework decisions only supported by the EU Treaty must not affect the acquis communautaire. Ireland, which, with the backing of Slovakia, referred this use of the EC Treaty by legislators to the Court, has just lost the argument thanks to this judgment.
Irish legislation already imposes its own data retention measures on the electronic communications sector. The maximum length of time consumers' data, for example, can be retained in Ireland is three years - more than the two years allowed by directive 2006/24/EC. The Commission began infringement proceedings against Ireland and three other member states for failure to transpose the directive. Community law is only competent for legislation based on the EC Treaty. Framework decisions based on the EU Treaty do not fall within the remit of the Court. A source close to the Irish authorities stated that Dublin's challenge to the basis of the directive was motivated “purely by the legal principle”. (C.D./transl.rt)