Lawyer Asks to Probe Email Data Requests Without Court Approval
An Estonian lawyer has asked the prosecutor's office to examine whether investigators have been obtaining private email content without a court order, citing a Supreme Court ruling that suggests such practice may have been common.
Kristjan Tuul, a sworn advocate from the Namm law office, has turned to the Estonian prosecutor's office with a request to review whether communications operators and service providers handed over the contents of people's email accounts without legal grounds and without court permission. In early June, Tuul sent a similar request to the Ministry of the Interior, but was told the ministry could not conduct an internal review and that he should address the prosecutor's office. After the ministry, in his view, interpreted the request too narrowly, he filed a new submission, yet the interior minister again recommended turning to the State Prosecutor's Office.
The request is partly connected to a criminal case in which Toomas Tamm, Küllike Namm and Kalev Kangur were accused of fraud but ultimately acquitted by all court instances. During the investigation, the Security Police (KaPo) asked Telia to provide the content of Tamm's email account for 2015–2018. The Supreme Court ruled that investigative authorities cannot, without court permission, demand a service provider to supply the content of a suspect's email in criminal proceedings. Tuul notes that in two criminal cases such actions were declared inadmissible evidence.
He points particularly to paragraph 25 of the Supreme Court judgment, which suggested that this was likely the customary practice of investigative bodies. As a practicing lawyer, Tuul finds it deeply worrying that final court decisions show people's private data and communication secrecy being collected on a broad scale and without the legal grounds prescribed by law.
In his submission, Tuul asks whether the prosecutor's office is aware of such pretrial practice, whether it regards the Supreme Court's finding as an isolated case or as part of a wider pattern, and whether it has conducted internal checks or issued guidance after the ruling. He also wants to know how many proceedings may have been affected, whether the lawfulness of previous evidence should be reviewed, and whether disciplinary or supervisory proceedings should be initiated if systematic violations are found.
Tuul notes that the prosecutor's office cannot itself launch an internal review of the Security Police, as that power rests with the Interior Ministry. He accuses the state of avoiding the issue, and says the Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs, which exercises service supervision over the prosecutor's office, has also been passive; the law does not give the ministry oversight of prosecutors in pretrial criminal matters. Since the Prosecutor's Office Act assigns service supervision to the attorney general, the request was sent to that official. Helen Uldrich, head of the prosecutor's office public relations department, confirmed the request had been received and must be answered within 15 days.
