The decision, published by the Supreme Court on Monday, was based on a case in which Toomas Tamm, Küllike Namm, and Kalev Kangur were charged with fraud. However, both the District Court and later the Circuit Court acquitted the defendants, and the Supreme Court largely left those rulings unchanged. During the investigation, the Internal Security Service requested from Telia the contents of suspect Tamm's email account covering the years 2015–2018.

In its ruling, the Supreme Court agreed with the lower courts, among other things, that the law had been seriously violated in obtaining the contents of Tamm's email account. Therefore, the protocol documenting the inspection of his mailbox cannot be used as admissible evidence, the Court said in a press release.

It explained that while the prosecution argued that the emails had already reached their recipient and could therefore be obtained through a request, the defense maintained that the messages were still part of the transmission process and could be accessed only with court authorization. The Supreme Court's Criminal Chamber agreed with the defense, finding the prosecution's interpretation incorrect.

The Court noted that, under the Constitution, the confidentiality of communications is protected and exceptions are allowed only with court authorization. The Court has previously clarified that messages in transit are afforded stricter protection because they are beyond the control of both sender and recipient.

Regardless of whether an email is accessible in the recipient's account, accessing it via a service provider's data — rather than through the sender's or recipient's account — constitutes interference with the communication process, since the parties to the correspondence do not control that data.

In this case, the prosecution acknowledged that the end user had no ability to influence the backup, storage, or disclosure of the emails. Consequently, the investigative authority obtained access — via the service provider and without a court warrant — to the contents of the defendant's email account while still in the communication process, the Court concluded.

The Supreme Court also found it unacceptable that the authorities requested the entire contents of the email account without limiting the scope of the request, for example, to the period relevant to the suspicion. The prosecution failed to logically justify the need to use emails covering nearly four years.

However, the Court noted that — unlike the Circuit Court — it does not rule out the possibility that such data could be collected through a search conducted with court authorization, for example by searching a server and its location to obtain emails. It is also possible to follow the legal procedures established for the seizure and examination of postal and telegraphic items.

"Since the case concerned only the use of emails stored with a service provider, the Supreme Court did not take a more detailed position on whether different requirements might apply to emails held, for example, by an employer," the Court added in its press release.

According to the charges, businessman Toomas Tamm — one of the owners of Aqva Hotels — attorney Küllike Namm, and former head of the Land Board Kalev Kangur knowingly misled a judge of the Viru County Court and the Civil Chamber of the Tartu Circuit Court in order to obtain a court ruling that would allow MV Finantseeringud OÜ to gain unlawful profit. The Viru District Court acquitted them in May last year, and the Tartu Circuit Court upheld the ruling in December.

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