28 DRAGOJEVIĆ v. CROATIA JUDGMENT the use of secret surveillance measures, a circumvention of this requirement by retrospective justification, introduced by the courts, can hardly provide adequate and sufficient safeguards against potential abuse since it opens the door to arbitrariness by allowing the implementation of secret surveillance contrary to the procedure envisaged by the relevant law. 99. This is particularly true in cases where the only effective possibility for an individual subjected to covert surveillance in the context of criminal proceedings is to challenge the lawfulness of the use of such measures before the criminal courts during the criminal proceedings against him or her (see paragraph 72 above). The Court has already held that although the courts could, in the criminal proceedings, consider questions of the fairness of admitting the evidence in the criminal proceedings, it was not open to them to deal with the substance of the Convention complaint that the interference with the applicant’s right to respect for his private life was not “in accordance with the law”; still less was it open to them to grant appropriate relief in connection with the complaint (see Khan, cited above, § 44; P.G. and J.H. v. the United Kingdom, no. 44787/98, § 86, ECHR 2001-IX; and Goranova-Karaeneva, cited above, § 59). 100. This can accordingly be observed in the present case, where the competent criminal courts limited their assessment of the use of secret surveillance to the extent relevant to the admissibility of the evidence thus obtained, without going into the substance of the Convention requirements concerning the allegations of arbitrary interference with the applicant’s Article 8 rights (see paragraphs 46 and 48 above). At the same time, the Government have not provided any information on remedies – such as an application for a declaratory judgment or an action for damages – which may become available to a person in the applicant’s situation (see Association for European Integration and Human Rights and Ekimdzhiev, cited above, § 102). 101. Against the above background, the Court finds that the relevant domestic law, as interpreted and applied by the competent courts, did not provide reasonable clarity regarding the scope and manner of exercise of the discretion conferred on the public authorities, and in particular did not secure in practice adequate safeguards against various possible abuses. Accordingly, the procedure for ordering and supervising the implementation of the interception of the applicant’s telephone was not shown to have fully complied with the requirements of lawfulness, nor was it adequate to keep the interference with the applicant’s right to respect for his private life and correspondence to what was “necessary in a democratic society”. 102. There has therefore been a violation of Article 8 of the Convention.