Thread by @gabrielazanfir

A couple of things I would keep in mind on this saga:
1) The 1st Constitutional Courts which declared unconstitutional the data retention laws transposing the defunct directive, did so in 2009, 2010 & 2011: 1st, the Romanian Const Court ❤️, then the German and Czech Const Courts.

https://twitter.com/LauKaya/status/1383096780213092352

2) Before them, the Bulgarian Supreme Administrative Court annulled a provision of the data retention national law in 2008.
What do these countries have in common? A history of suffering under surveillance states & no rule of law. Maybe they know this leads to bad stuff?

3) The ECJ tried to avoid the problem in a couple of cases, looking at formal issues & competence of the EU to act, when 1st looking at the 2006 Directive.
It couldn’t avoid it any longer when 2 other Constitutional-level tribunals sent it Qs : Austria & Ireland.

4) Under this pressure from *Constitutional Courts*, the CJEU started its now famous line of cases against bulk collection of metadata w/out proper safeguards for collection & gov access. Digital Rights Ireland & Seitlinger, in 2014, annulled the Directive w immediate effect!

5) After the DRI Decision, other Constitutional Courts followed suit to declare the transposing data retention laws unconstitutional.

6) Take Poland’s example. The Const Tribunal declared the law unconstitutional in 2014, a couple of months after the DRI judgment. But the Polish Gov (PiS) took it as an opportunity to broaden its surveillance powers in the newly proposed law - tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

7) And the problem boils down to this: a battle between Const Courts, the rule of law and respect for fundamental rights on one hand, and governments and their increasing need to be all powerful and omniscient, on the other.
#DataRetention

8) Some constitutional courts, like the Czech one, abandoned course a decade later, see edri.org/our-work/czech….
Some governments thought that the best way to solve the battle is to simply *undermine the foundations of the Const Court*, see washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/…

9) And now another government came up with an even more radical strategy - why not undermine the foundational texts of the EU that protect fundamental rights, including the EU Charter? So on April 21st next, I will read with more anxiety & curiosity ...

10)...what the Conseil d’Etat will say in this saga, than what the European Commission will put forward in the AI reg proposal. If the Const Courts, the CJEU, the rule of law, the fundamental frameworks will be eroded, a secondary piece of legislation doesn’t matter as much.
#END