The European Parliament has rejected a key amendment to the proposed data retention directive called for by European lawyers' groups.

With MEPs overturning amendments recommended to the parliament only two weeks before, the directive on retention of telecommunications data - which is intended to help combat terrorism - will now almost certainly pass through to its final stage without specific mention of the need for the respect for professional secrecy.


Alongside other groups, the Council of Bars and Law Societies of The EU (CCBE) had called for two amendments to be incorporated into the text of the directive: one pointing up the specific need for professional secrecy and another ensuring agencies requesting access to data are granted it only via by an independent body. 'The professional secrecy of the lawyer is necessary in a democracy, and we are disappointed by the vote of the parliament on this point,' CCBE president Bernard Vatier said last month.


It seems highly likely that the text of the directive as it stands now is how it will be finally passed when it is published in the Official Journal of the European Union. It will come into force 20 days after publication, probably in the first quarter of 2006.


Arve Føyen, head of the CCBE's IT law committee, said the council should now focus on changing the next incarnation of the directive.


'As for any directive there will be a review process in a couple of years and definitely we will have to aim for a change at that time,' he said.


In recommending the text to the Council of Ministers, the parliament did include a statement in the preamble that 'professional secrecy will also be respected in the application of the present directive'.


However, this will not bind professional secrecy into the directive when it is made into national law.