The Constitutional Court ruled on Wednesday that the cyber security law is unconstitutional, admitting the notification by Liberal MPs, who complained that the enactment thereof limited digital life privacy, Mediafax informs.
"The Court notes that the entire bill suffers from deficiencies in terms of observance of the rules of legislative technique, consistency, clarity, predictability, and in terms of compliance with the legislative procedure, the absence of an opinion of the Supreme Council of National Defense, elements liable to cause a breach of Article .1 par. (5) of the Constitution, which enshrines the principle of legality, and the provisions of Article 119 of the Basic Law on CSAT tasks, " a press release from the CC reads.
The Court found a violation of the constitutional provisions contained in Article 1, paragraphs 3, 4 and 5 on the rule of law, separation of powers principle or the principle of legality, in Article 21, paragraphs 1 and 3, on access to justice and right to a fair trial in Article 26 on the intimate, family and private life and Article 28 on the secrecy of correspondence, in terms of lack of necessary guarantees of the those rights observance and Article 53 on the restriction of some rights or freedoms.
Therefore, the Court has found unconstitutional several provisions of the law, including those relating to the definition of "cyber infrastructure owners" (Article 2 of the Law), the designation of the Romanian Intelligence Service as the national cyber security authority (Article 10) lack of legal guarantees (authorization by a court) for the compliance obligations of cyber infrastructure to allow access of competent authorities representatives to data held relevant in the context of the request made (Article 17), lack of regulation by law of the criteria according to which cyber infrastructure of national interest selection is made and the way in which they are established (Article 19), the authority conducting the audit of cybersecurity (article 20 c) lack of regulation by law of the circumstances requiring notification and its content (Article 20 c), no legal consecration of judicial control over administrative acts issued by the competent authorities which are likely to prejudice the legitimate rights or interests (art.16-23), lack of predictability of rules on the monitoring and control procedures, namely those relating to finding and punishing offenses (Article 27, 28, 30), lack of legal safeguards (authorization by a court) related to compliance obligations of cyber infrastructure to enable the competent authorities to carry out inspections, including unannounced inspections at any facility, premises or infrastructure (Article 27 para. (2) "according to CC.
The decision is final and binding and shall be communicated to the President of Romania, the Presidents of both Houses of Parliament and the Prime Minister.
The arguments set forth in the motivation of the ruling made by the Plenum of the Constitutional Court will be presented in the decision which will be published in the Official Journal.
On 23 December 2014, Liberal MPs challenged in the Constitutional Court the Cybersecurity Law initiated by the Government and adopted unanimously the week before in the Senate, and with the positive vote of Liberal and PDL Senators. Liberal MPs have shown, in the unconstitutionality notification of the of Cybersecurity Law that the enactment thereof limited digital life privacy right.