(PRESS RELEASE) BRNO, December 16, 2025 — /EuropaWire/ — According to information on the website of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the judgment in the case of Černý and Others v. the Czech Republic (applications no. 37514/20, 37525/20, 37533/20, 37546/20 and 37555/20) is to be delivered on December 18, 2025.
The case concerns the confidentiality of communications between a lawyer and a client (attorney-client privilege).
The applicants acted as the defense attorneys of the suspect Shahram Zadeh in criminal proceedings; they were Adam Černý, Petr Kočí, Pavel Čapčuch, Ondřej Lichnovský and Ilona Medňanská. In these criminal proceedings, the suspect Zadeh was searched in 2016, during which the police seized his smartphone and electronic tablet. Approximately 20,000 pages of material were subsequently extracted from these devices, including correspondence between Zadeh and his lawyers – the complainants – and this material was included in the criminal file. All attempts by Zadeh and his lawyers to exclude this confidential information from the file were rejected.
The Board of Directors of the Czech Bar Association appeared in the proceedings before the Constitutional Court as an auxiliary participant, namely as a representative of the legal profession, in the interest of implementing the constitutionally guaranteed fundamental right to defense and legal aid, as well as protecting the free exercise of the profession of lawyer, but the constitutional complaint of the complainants was ultimately a resolution of the Constitutional Court of 20 November 2019, file no. IV. ÚS 4342/18, issued by a panel composed of President Jaromír Jirsa as Judge Rapporteur and Judges Jan Filip and Pavel Rychetský, was rejected.
In parallel, the applicants also conducted proceedings for compensation for damages and some of them received an apology. In April 2025, the Supreme Court of the Czech Republic ruled in the case of Zadeh as the applicants’ client that the inclusion of the material in the file was unlawful.
The applicants, through their legal representatives Zdeněk Koudelka and Anna Citterbergová, filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights, in which they, referring to Article 8 of the Convention (right to respect for private and family life and correspondence) and Article 13 of the Convention (right to an effective remedy), seek protection against a breach of the confidentiality of communications between a lawyer and a client. They argue that the inclusion of their correspondence with the client in his criminal file infringed the protected confidentiality of that communication and that the Czech legal system did not provide sufficient procedural guarantees to protect the privacy of communications between a lawyer and a client in the case of data seized from electronic devices.
Furthermore, the applicants, relying on Article 6(1) (right to a fair trial), argue that the request of the Czech Bar Association to intervene in the proceedings before the Constitutional Court in their case was not sent to them for their comments.
Attorney Zdeněk Koudelka states that “the rights and status of defense attorneys are decisive for the rights and status of all persons. If in a certain country the defense loses its rights, in fact all people whose rights cannot be effectively defended lose their rights. By the above procedure, the Municipal Court violated several rights of the complainants and interfered with the free exercise of advocacy. It is unacceptable that communication between a defense attorney and his client, which enjoys protection, for example, in the event of ordered wiretapping or monitoring of electronic communications, can be breached by other state interventions, for example through house searches. From the defense perspective, the violation of the confidentiality of communication between the defendant and his defense attorneys is particularly crucial. By this procedure, the judge did not act as an impartial arbitrator, but rather provided the prosecution with a procedural advantage, and from the position of his superior authority in the court proceedings, he effectively became its assistant.”
For further information and media inquiries, please contact exclusively:
doc. JUDr. Zdeněk Koudelka, Ph.D., attorney
e-mail: advokat@zdenekkoudelka.cz
tel.: +420 774 915 919
Optátova 46, 637 00 Brno, Czech Republic
www.zdenekkoudelka.cz
SOURCE: EuropaWire (In Czech language)
