CJEU case C-162/22 Lietuvos Respublikos generalinė prokuratūra – CJEU Judgment (European Union, 2023)

The Lithuanian Prosecutor General´s Office investigated one of its public prosecutors, who was found responsible of misconduct in its office. The research into the public prosecutor´s misconduct was authorised by a court order, allowing for the interception and recording of data transmitted over electronic communication. Following these findings, the Prosecutor General´s Office dismissed the public prosecutor from office. The public prosecutor contested the decision before the [https://administracinis.teismas.lt/ Regional Administrative Court (Vilniaus apygardos administracinis teisma)], which dismissed the claim due to the lawfulness of the criminal intelligence operations and process behind the data gathered. The controller then appealed the case to the [https://www.lvat.lt/ Supreme Administrative Court (Lietuvos vyriausiasis administracinis teisma)], as he alleged that the access by intelligence bodies to traffic data and actual content of electronic communications was such a serious interference with fundamental rights that access could only be granted to combat serious crime. The Supreme Administrative Court considered it apparent that [https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2002/58/oj/eng Article 15(1) ePrivacy Directive 2002/58/EC], together with [https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2002/58/oj/eng Article 3]ePrivacy Directive 2002/58/EC thereof, extends the scope of that directive only to legislative measures requiring providers of electronic communications services to grant the competent national authorities access to data (as found in C-623/17 Privacy International). Moreover, it follows from [https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=238381&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=22564108 C-746/18 Prokuratuur], that only actions to combat serious crime and measures to prevent serious threats to public security are capable of justifying serious interference with [https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/treaty/char_2012/oj Article 7