Police observation and the 1990 schengen convention

Conclusion In spite of the different conditions, all of the five countries which originally signed the Schengen Convention seem to allow and use observation as a method of criminal inquiry, at least to a certain extent. However, the only country in which practically every type of observation is based on statutory provisions is Germany. The interpretation that the Constitutional Court has given to the privacy and the freedom of the individual has led to the situation that Germany now has an extremely detailed and vast system of legislation on breaches of privacy by the state in general and on observation in particular. One could therefore think that the reason for the existence of this German legislation is a typically German one. But is this really true?The creation of an explicit legislation on police observation powers would also bring more clarity into the undefined terminology used in the Schengen Convention and clarify the legal position and situation in which observing police officers might find themselves (in their own country as well as abroad). Furthermore, it would go some way to controlling the activities of the police in the highly sensitive field between the common interest of criminal investigation and the individual interest of privacy. It leads one to seriously wonder if the use of intensive observation techniques by the police without a statutory basis is in accordance with the right to privacy as guaranteed by article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights ...This article is based on a contribution to the 11th International Congress on Criminology, held August 22–27, 1993 in Budapest (Hungary). It was written with financial support of the Legal Research Foundation, which is part of the Netherlands Foundation for Scientific Research (NWO), and of the Dutch Ministry of Internal Affairs. The author would like to thank Chantal Joubert, especially for providing him with information on Luxembourg and France, Prof. dr. Jan Naeyé for his commentary on a previous version of the article and Frank Klaassen for his very special contribution to the presentation in Budapest.