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updated 10:20 AM UTC, Dec 13, 2023

European Court Rules Against Worker’s Dismissal Over Private Messages

Unic Press UK: In a verdict of eleven votes to six yesterday, the 5th September, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) held that Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life, the home and correspondence) of the European Convention on Human Rights was violated.

The court’s ruling was in respect of Bogdan Mihai Bărbulescu v. Romania (application no. 61496/08), in which a private company dismissed a worker after ‘monitoring his electronic communications and accessing their contents’.

The ECHR concluded that the Romanian authorities and the national courts did not provide adequate protection to Bărbulescu’s right to private life and correspondence.

The court held that the national authorities had been required to have a sort of balancing exercise between the worker and his employer over competing interests at stake, viz: Bărbulescu’s right to respect for private and family life, the home and correspondence, on the one hand, and his employer’s right to take appropriate measures for a smooth running of the company, on the other.

The ECHR flayed the national courts for failing to make good judgment as to whether Bărbulescu’s employers had given him prior notice of the possibility that his private communications were open to monitoring/intrusion.

Some facts of the case

  • The applicant, Bogdan Mihai Bărbulescu, is a Romanian national.
  • From 1 August 2004 until 6 August 2007, the applicant Bărbulescu was employed by a private company as an engineer in charge of sales.
  • At his employer’s instance, Bărbulescu created a Yahoo Messenger account for the purpose of responding to clients’ enquiries.
  • On 13 July 2007, the applicant was summoned by his employer after it was discovered that he had used the internet for personal purposes.  Bărbulescu denied the allegation.
  • On 1 August 2007, Bărbulescu’s employment contract was terminated on the grounds of a breach of the company’s internal regulations that prohibited the use of company resources for personal purposes.
  • The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 15 December 2008 after national courts had ruled that Bărbulescu’s employer had complied with dismissal proceedings provided for by the Labour Code.
  • ‘In its Chamber judgment of 12 January 2016, the ECHR held, by six votes to one, that there had been no violation of Article 8 of the Convention, finding that the domestic courts had struck a fair balance between Mr Bărbulescu’s right to respect for his private life and correspondence under Article 8 and the interests of his employer.’
  • On 6 June 2016 the case was referred to the Grand Chamber.
  • On 5 September 2017, the Grand Chamber judgment of the European Court of Human Rights held that there had been a violation of Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life, the home and correspondence) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
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