Sky ECC: Germany’s top criminal court admitted chats but remitted cannabis case
On 9 January 2025 the Federal Court of Justice rejected a challenge to French Sky ECC evidence in case 1 StR 142/24. The judgment nevertheless required reconsideration under Germany’s changed cannabis law.
Munich I Regional Court had sentenced a man on 14 December 2023 to four years and three months for assisting three large-scale drug transactions by a gang. They involved cannabis from Spain. According to the decision, his involvement was proved solely through Sky ECC chats. He appealed on points of law.
The Federal Court of Justice held the chat challenge inadmissible because the defence relied on an incorrect date. A police memorandum said March 2020 where March 2021 was intended. That undermined the argument that German authorities had known about the interception a year earlier and should have intervened.
The court also examined the substance and found no ground to exclude the evidence. It considered the French collection based on concrete suspicions and judicial authorisation. France’s breach of its duty to notify Germany of the interception likewise did not require exclusion in this case. The court weighed the seriousness of the organised drug offences, the absence of other evidence and the opportunity to challenge the data at trial.
The appeal partly succeeded because the Cannabis Act had entered into force on 1 April 2024. The trial court needed to assess which criminal rules were more favourable to the defendant. The Federal Court of Justice therefore quashed the judgment while preserving its factual findings and remitted the case to another chamber of Munich I Regional Court.
