German Federal Constitutional Court: German Data Retention Provisions Unconstitutional in Their Present Form; Decision of 2 March 2010, NJW 2010, p. 833.
This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.About one year after the European Court of Justice had handed down its notorious decision on the Data Retention Directive concerning telecommunications traffic data, it was for the German Federal Constitutional Court to take a final decision on the German implementation of the Directive. So far, the latter Court had only issued temporary injunctions restricting data retrieval by the public authorities. Now, the final ruling by the Court has been anxiously awaited since the complainants had not only challenged the German provisions implementing the Directive, but also the Directive itself. Thus, the question was raised whether the Court would finally, for the first time in its history, initiate a preliminary ruling procedure according to Article 267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.Peer Reviewe
