EU: Ireland is challenging in Europe's highest court an EU directive aimed at fighting terrorism, in a case with important implications for EU justice policy.
The Government said yesterday it had issued a legal challenge to the data retention directive because EU states had agreed the measure using the wrong legal basis.
The case against the European Commission will be heard at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg and is expected to take more than a year to decide.
The data retention directive aims to harmonise law in all 25 EU member states by forcing companies to store data on calls and internet use for at least six months.
The directive was promoted by Britain during its presidency of the EU in the second half of 2006 as the best practical way to fight terrorism and serious crime.
It argued that police forces needed to have ready access to a record of who contacted whom and the time and location of calls. The actual content of calls, e-mails, text messages or internet connections need not be logged under the agreed EU directive.
Ireland and Slovakia, although not opposed to the principle of storing data on phone calls (Ireland already stores this data for three years), opposed the directive when EU states voted by a majority in favour of the measure at council in February this year.
Both countries argued that legislation to store data should not be introduced through a directive, which can be agreed by a qualified majority rather than a unanimous vote.
This type of EU legislation is usually introduced for matters relating to the proper functioning of the European internal market in consultation with the commission and the European Parliament. Instead, Minister for Justice Michael McDowell argued that data retention was a justice issue that should be introduced via a framework decision that would require a unanimous vote by all 25 EU member states.
"We believe that provision for data retention should have been made by way of a framework decision under the third pillar. This is an important legal question which needs to be clarified," said an Irish official.
A spokesman said the commission believed the directive was a careful, efficient and balanced mechanism to fight terrorism and organised crime.
A British official said there was no surprise at the decision taken by Ireland but reiterated that a directive was the correct legal basis for data retention.
It is likely that Britain and possibly other EU states will become parties in opposition to Ireland in the legal case at the ECJ.
A spokeswoman for the Slovakian government said it would join the Irish case rather than take separate legal proceedings.