The applicant alleged, in particular, that his
employer’s decision to terminate his contract had been based on a breach of his
right to respect for his private life and correspondence and that the domestic
courts had failed to protect his right.
The circumstances of the case
The applicant was born in 1979 and lives in Bucharest.
From 1 August 2004 to 6 August 2007, he was employed
by a private company (“the employer”) as an engineer in charge of sales. At his
employer’s request, he created a Yahoo Messenger account for the purpose of
responding to clients’ enquiries.
On 13 July 2007 the employer informed the applicant
that his Yahoo Messenger communications had been monitored from 5 to 13 July
2007 and that the records showed that he had used the Internet for personal
purposes, contrary to internal regulations. The applicant replied in writing
that he had only used Yahoo Messenger for professional purposes.
When presented
with a forty-five-page transcript of his communications on Yahoo Messenger, the
applicant notified his employer that, by violating his correspondence, they
were accountable under the Criminal Code. The forty‑five pages contained
transcripts of all the messages that the applicant had exchanged with his
fiancée and his brother during the period when his communications had been
monitored; they related to personal matters involving the applicant. The
transcript also contained five short messages that the applicant had exchanged
with his fiancée on 12 July 2007 using a personal Yahoo Messenger account;
these messages did not disclose any intimate information.
On 1 August 2007 the employer terminated the
applicant’s employment contract for breach of the company’s internal
regulations which stated, inter alia:
“It is strictly forbidden to disturb order and
discipline within the company’s premises and especially ... to use computers,
photocopiers, telephones, telex and fax machines for personal purposes.”
The applicant challenged his employer’s decision
before the Bucharest County Court (“the County Court”). He complained that this
decision had been null and void since, by accessing his communications, his
employer had violated his right to correspondence protected by the Romanian
Constitution and the Criminal Code.
In a judgment of 7 December 2007, the County Court
dismissed his complaint on the grounds that the employer had complied with the
dismissal proceedings provided for by the Labour Code and noted that the
applicant had been duly informed of the employer’s regulations that prohibited
the use of company resources for personal purposes.
No comments:
Post a Comment