DRAGOJEVIĆ v. CROATIA JUDGMENT 27 were essentially based only on a statement referring to the existence of the OSCOC’s request for the use of secret surveillance and the statutory phrase that “the investigation could not be conducted by other means or that it would be extremely difficult” (see paragraphs 9, 11, 13 and 17 above). No actual details were provided based on the specific facts of the case and particular circumstances indicating a probable cause to believe that the offences had been committed and that the investigation could not be conducted by other, less intrusive, means. 96. Although that apparently conflicted with the requirements of the relevant domestic law and the above-cited case-law of the Constitutional Court (see paragraphs 55 and 93 above), it appears to have been approved through the practice of the Supreme Court and later endorsed by the Constitutional Court. In particular, the Supreme Court held, dealing with the matter in the context of the admissibility of evidence, which is a different matter under the Convention (see paragraph 99 below), that a lack of reasons in the secret surveillance orders, contrary to Article 182 § 1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, could be compensated by retrospective specific reasons with regard to the relevant questions at a later stage of the proceedings by the court being requested to exclude the evidence thus obtained from the case file (see paragraph 58 above). This appears to be accepted by the Constitutional Court, which, in its decision no. U-III2781/2010 of 9 January 2014, held that if the secret surveillance orders did not contain reasons, under certain conditions reasons could be stated in the first-instance judgment or the decision concerning the request for exclusion of unlawfully obtained evidence (see paragraph 60 above). 97. It follows from the foregoing that whereas the Code of Criminal Procedure expressly envisaged prior judicial scrutiny and detailed reasons when authorising secret surveillance orders, in order for such measures to be put in place, the national courts introduced the possibility of retrospective justification of their use, even where the statutory requirement of prior judicial scrutiny and detailed reasons in the authorisation was not complied with. In an area as sensitive as the use of secret surveillance, which is tolerable under the Convention only in so far as strictly necessary for safeguarding the democratic institutions, the Court has difficulty in accepting this situation created by the national courts. It suggests that the practice in the administration of law, which is in itself not sufficiently clear given the two contradictory positions adopted by both the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court (see paragraphs 93 and 96, and 57-61 above), conflicts with the clear wording of the legislation limiting the exercise of the discretion conferred on the public authorities in the use of covert surveillance (compare Kopp, cited above, § 73; and Kvasnica, cited above, § 87). 98. Moreover, the Court considers that in a situation where the legislature envisaged prior detailed judicial scrutiny of the proportionality of