Order of the Court of Lecce of 3 October 2017

With this order, the Court of Lecce has stayed the proceeding to await the decision of the Constitutional Court on the issue of the possible illegitimacy of Article 191 of the code of criminal procedure as being inconsistent with Article 117 of the Constitution in relation to Article 8 (Right to respect for private and family life) of the ECHR. According to the Court, this issue was relevant and ‘not manifestly unfounded’ because Italy has not adopted clear disincentives to avoid abuses of the police in case of inspections, searches or seizures. For the Court, the well-established case-law that recognized the possibility to use evidences obtained by not carefully regulated inspections, searches or seizures is inconsistent with the relevant international legal instruments. In particular, the decision of 16 March 2017 of the ECHR Court on the case Modestou v. Greece ruled that the search carried out without any ex ante judicial control and on the grounds of a general search warrant not sufficiently motivated is inconsistent with Article 8 of the ECHR.