Minister Çollaku in Parliament introduces the Draft law on Interception of Electronic Communications

Bellow we provide the full speech of the Minister of European Integration, Mr. Bekim Çollaku.

Honourable President of the Assembly,
Honourable MP`s,

Please allow me to present the Draft law on Interception of Electronic Communications. The need for drafting the law in question is emerged  based on the European Commission requirements for visa liberalization process, in February 2014.

The initial draft of this draft law is elaborated by the Ministry of European Integration. The first draft has taken into account the Council Resolution of 17 January 1995 on Lawful Interception of Telecommunications, the Convention on Cybercrime of the Council of Europe’s 2001, Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of 1950.

Also, the draft-law has taken into account EU Member States set up for governing this issue, such as: Italy, Germany, Austria, England, France. At EU level there is no uniform governance of interception. At the level of the Member States, the scope of interception, access to electronic communications, interception capacity, interception confidentiality, interception security, the categories of data to be retained and the timeline for data retention, reporting, compensation, and oversight, varies from country to country.

Following the completion of the first draft commenced the preliminary consultations process at government level. The public and civil society consultations process began immediately after. In total were held seven (7) meetings and are involved CIVIKOS, the network of civil society organizations in Kosovo level. During the public consultation, any amendments occurred in the draft law was conveyed to civil society for additional comments.

The draft law was intensively consulted with the European Commission and EULEX. In this regard, the European Commission has taken 6 months to analyze every aspect of the draft. Following this we agreed on the final version of the draft law in line with EU legislation.

The Constitution guarantees human rights, including the right to privacy, and inevitably determines the restrictions to privacy. In the context of the Draft law on interception,  the right to privacy defined in paragraph 3 of Article 36 of the Constitution is not infringed. The draft law defines that “network operator and service provider responds only to the lawful order” which means that no personal data can be transmitted by network operators to law enforcement agencies without a lawful order.

The draft law clearly defines the lawful order. However, the right to privacy, in the context of interception, can be restricted, unless these data are subject to criminal law and restrictions and exemption defined in relation to personal data protection, including national security, national defence, public safety, prevention, investigation, detection and prosecution of a criminal offenses.

The draft law on interception is interconnected with the Criminal Procedure Code, the Law on KIA, the Law on Personal Data Protection and the Law on Electronic Communications. These institutions exercise their activities under respective laws and are subject to democratic control and oversight. In the context of the draft law on interception, these institutions carry out their activities in the field of interception due to national security, national defence, public safety, prevention, investigation, detection and prosecution of criminal offences, only pursuant to a lawful order defined in the draft law on interception.

Thank you for attention