Right To Privacy In Correspondence And Telephone Conversations

[Olajire Deborah]

Right To Privacy In Correspondence And Telephone Conversations

In addition, the Constitution guarantees and protects your rights to privacy in your correspondence. These include privacy as regards your letters, e-mails, memo, and any other document which is confidential to you. In this light, no one has the right to read your letters or mails without your permission. No one has the right to access or possess your confidential documents without your consent. Anyone who does contrary has transgressed against the Constitution and will be liable for the breach.

Again, under the Constitution, your privacy as to your telephone conversations and telegraphic communications are guaranteed. So, it is unconstitutional for anybody to access or disclose the contents of your telephone conversation to others without your consent. It is illegal for anybody to possess your telegraphic communications without your permission. This provision can be extended to the modern-day internet.

It is illegal for anybody to tap into your phone line for the purpose of listening into or recording your private conversations on the telephone. It is unlawful for any person to access the record of your call logs without authority and due consent from appropriate authorities. This constitutional provision anticipated the current rampant practices by some unscrupulous policemen who stop people at random under the guise that they are “yahoo-yahoo boys”. Without any lawful justification or court order, these policemen then seize the phones or laptops of their victims and go through the correspondences.

Although, the Inspector General of Police has severally warned policemen against these unlawful acts, many of them have persisted. Yes, it is true that the security agencies may be permitted to access the telephone records and other correspondences of suspected criminals, but, there are laid down procedures for doing this, which I have discussed in section (g) below. So, if you are a victim of such unauthorized search, now you know better.

Note that under the criminal law, it also constitutes an offence punishable with imprisonment for anybody to tamper with your letters or telegraphic materials without your consent. Particularly, the jail term may be 3 years or more for a postman who opens or tampers with your mail without your consent.

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