
Austria's Supreme Court anchors SKY ECC admissibility in § 55d Abs 7 EU-JZG and CJEU C-670/22
On 13 November 2024 the Supreme Court of Justice (OGH) dismissed a fundamental-rights complaint against continued pre-trial detention in a large-scale cannabis-cultivation case; the underlying proceedings are pending after the indictment was declared effective. The complaint argued that the urgent suspicion rested on SKY ECC chats subject to an evidence-use prohibition under § 55d para 7 (in conjunction with § 55a para 1 no 13) EU-JZG. Endorsing 14 Os 107/24b and the CJEU's reading of Art 31 Directive 2014/41/EU (EEA) in C-670/22 (EncroChat), the court treated § 55d para 7 as an unconditional ban comparable to § 140 para 1 StPO. It nonetheless rejected the complaint: the applicant failed to identify the specific passages of the foreign-language file indicating notification, and Art 6 and Art 8 ECHR grievances fall outside such a complaint, which is confined to Art 5 ECHR. Defence teams must pin down the notification facts.