DRAGOJEVIĆ v. CROATIA JUDGMENT 22 representative on 13 June 2011 (see paragraph 51 above) and that the applicant lodged his complaint with the Court on 20 October 2011. 74. Against the above background, the Court rejects the Government’s objection. 75. The Court also notes that this complaint is not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention. It further notes that it is not inadmissible on any other grounds. It must therefore be declared admissible. B. Merits 1. The parties’ submissions 76. The applicant contended that his secret surveillance had been unlawful because it had been based on orders of the investigating judge issued contrary to the relevant domestic law and the case-law of the higher domestic courts. Those orders of the investigating judge had contained no assessment of the likelihood that an offence had been committed and that the investigation into that offence could not be conducted by other, less intrusive, means. At the same time the relevant domestic law provided for judicial control of secret surveillance measures and required the judicial authority to examine the reasons put forward by the prosecuting authorities before issuing the secret surveillance orders. The statutory requirement for a reasoned order was necessary as a form of effective judicial control of measures interfering with the fundamental rights of an individual. 77. The Government accepted that there had been interference with the applicant’s rights under Article 8 of the Convention. However, they considered that such interference had been justified. In particular, the secret surveillance orders had been based on Article 180 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and had been issued and supervised by an investigating judge pursuant to reasoned and substantiated requests from the OSCOC which the investigating judge had accepted as such. Moreover, such interference had pursued the legitimate aim of investigating and prosecuting crime and had been proportionate to the circumstances and gravity of the offence at issue. 2. The Court’s assessment (a) General principles 78. The Court reiterates that telephone conversations are covered by the notions of “private life” and “correspondence” within the meaning of Article 8. Their monitoring amounts to an interference with the exercise of one’s rights under Article 8 (see Malone v. the United Kingdom, 2 August 1984, § 64, Series A no. 82).