preložiť After years of litigation, Haščák has lived to see the end. The Constitutional Court has ruled that the SIS must finally destroy the Gorilla recordings
The Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic has ruled that the Slovak Information Service (SIS) violated the fundamental rights of businessman Jaroslav Haščák by not destroying the recordings in the Gorilla action. It also ordered the SIS to immediately destroy all materials from this wiretapping.
"This is a fulfillment of the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights," Haščák's lawyer Martin Škubla said.
Verdict after years of litigation
The Constitutional Court's decision comes after the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled in 2022 that the Slovak courts did not provide Haščák with sufficient protection.
The businessman was subsequently invited to file a new complaint in 2023, which the court has now upheld.
In addition, the case has also moved to the Supreme Court, which just a few days ago - on 30 January 2025 - ruled that it is the Constitutional Court, and not the civil courts, that should deal with the issue of protection of Haščák's rights. This verdict has gone through to today's decision, which definitively obliges the SIS to destroy all the results of the wiretapping.
The recordings must disappear
The Constitutional Court has made it clear that the SIS must take care of the destruction of all materials - not only the documents, but also the recordings themselves. Although the secret service says it destroyed them long ago, the court wants to ensure that no copies are preserved. In particular, the so-called Track 21 from the home of Marian Kočner is also mentioned. If it turns out that some other state agency still has the recordings, it will be obliged to destroy them.
The Constitutional Court has issued similar rulings in the past, in May and August 2024, when it ordered the destruction of other recordings related to the Gorilla case.
Clearing the name and a long legal battle
The case was one of the reasons why Jaroslav Haščák found himself in detention in 2020. Judge Pamela Záleská of the Specialised Criminal Court sent him behind bars at the suggestion of prosecutor Ondrej Repa on the grounds that he could influence the investigation. Now the Constitutional Court has admitted that his rights were violated even then.
Monday's decision by the Constitutional Court closed a long-running case that had dragged on for more than 12 years.
See the archive report from 20 February 2024 about Haščák and the Gorilla recordings.