2 ______________________________________________________________________________ competent state authorities. Unconstitutionality of such position has already been established by the Decision of the Constitutional Court IUz -149/2008 of 28 May 2009, adopted at the initiative of the Provincial Ombudsman for assessing the constitutionality of Article 55, Paragraph 1 of the Law on Telecommunications (Official Gazette of RS, Nos. 44/03 and 36/06). Article 13, Paragraph 1 in connection with Article 12, Paragraph 1 item 6) of the Law on MSA and MIA is inconsistent with the provisions of Article 41, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia as they stipulate that "on the instruction of the MSA director or a person authorised by the MSA director", the MSA shall apply special procedures and measures including a "covert electronic surveillance of telecommunications and information systems in order to collect data on telecommunication traffic and the locations of the users, without the insight in the content". The aforementioned procedures and measures derogate from the principle of secrecy of correspondence and other means of communication, and should be allowed only on the basis of court order. Article 16, Paragraph 2 of the Law on MSA and MIA is inconsistent with the provisions of Article 41, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia as it provides that MSA "is entitled to receive information from telecommunication operators on their users, communication established, location of communication and other data of importance for the outcomes of the implementation of special measures and procedures". The said information interferes with the secrecy of correspondence and other means of communication and hence, MSA cannot have the "right" to obtain them without a court decision. It is important to emphasise the undisputable fact that the special measures for obtaining information on the communication of citizens are in applied in practice in this manner - without a court order. Such is the practice of MSA, which invokes the challenged Articles of the Law on MSA and MIA, but also the police (under the Ministry of Internal Affairs) and MIA, and probably other bodies as well. However, the submitters of this Proposal could not identify a provision in the laws regulating the work of the police and Security Information Agency (BIA) that would contravene the Constitution and that could be disputed, but the practice of the police and BIA is based on the interpretation according to which call listings, user locations and other elements of communication are not covered by the concept of communication, and therefore not protected by the provisions of Article 41, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution. For assessing the constitutionality, it is relevant to note that obtaining and using the following data: with whom a citizen communicates, in which period of time, what kind of connection and what type of device he/she uses (e.g. type of mobile phone or computer), as well as the information about the location from which he/she communicates, particularly when taken all together, undoubtedly represents a derogation from the principle of inviolability of correspondence and other means of communication, which was confirmed in several judgments of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Pursuant to Article 18, Paragraph 3 of the Constitution, human rights provisions shall be construed in accordance with applicable international human rights standards and practices of international institutions which supervise their implementation. The European Court of Human Rights has already for 25 years been taking a stand that collection of information on telephone numbers called, time and length of calls fall under the concept of communication (Malone v UK, Judgment of 2 August 1984, § 83-84, enclosed herewith). This position was again confirmed by stating that the notion of privacy and correspondence includes not only telephone communications but also e-mail correspondence and Internet use (Copland v United Kingdom, Judgment of 3 April 2007, § 43). It is particularly important that, according to the opinion of the European Court of Human Rights, data on telecommunications traffic (on dialled numbers, time and duration of each phone call) are “integral part of telephone communication” (Copland v The