Article 8 - Protection of personal data
Key facts of the case:
An attorney turned to the court on behalf of his clients, who requested a) information from the registrar about all proceedings in which a specific person mentioned by name is or was a party and b) copies provided by the registrar of all the judgements in which this person was a party. The reason was that the registrar of the District Court in the Hague had refused to give in particular the first information. The District Court in summary proceedings denied the first right, but it granted the right to receive copies of all the judgements in which the person mentioned was involved. The District Court stated that Dutch procedural law only referred, in the context of making public legal proceedings, to copies of past judgements and decisions and not to an overview of proceedings in which someone is involved. There is no public register in the field of (pending) civil proceedings. The Attorney-General to the Supreme Court feels this is contrary to the concept that proceedings should be public. He also states that there are no uniform policies among courts in this respect in The Netherlands. This should be remedied by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court recognizes the right to respect for private life of those who are a party to the legal proceedings, but in general the need for legal proceedings being public prevails.
Key legal question raised by the Court:
To what extent must courts provide information to third parties other than the parties involved about civil proceedings which are pending or have been pending apart from copies of judgements, which are already made available?
Outcome of the case:
The Supreme Court holds, among other things, that the right to respect for private life is involved here, but that the principle of legal proceedings being public, apart from some exceptions laid down in law and unless there are some major interests which are laid down in administrative guidelines, prevails. The Court focuses on the following cases (in particular pending ones): the courts should give information about pending proceedings in which the person involved is a party; if there will be a public hearing the courts should give information so that the third party can attend the hearing and if there have been one or more judgements in proceedings in which the person involved is or was a party, the courts should in general give copies of those judgements to the third party. Further information, among other things about proceedings in which the person involved was a party, need not be provided. The Supreme Court judgement means that detailed information must be provided to third parties in pending proceedings, but that copies of judgements and decisions suffice when information is asked about past proceedings. This judgement introduces uniformity in the Netherlands and gives a general right to information about pending proceedings to third parties. The result of the case as such before the District Court was not changed, as the proceedings before the Supreme Court were only instigated by the Attorney-General in order to achieve uniform policies among the courts in future.
3.3.1. The protection of personal data is a fundamental right which is safeguarded by among other things Article 8 ECHR, which provides in the right to respect for someone’s private and family life, his home and his correspondence and Article 10 of the Constitution, which lays down that everyone has a right to respect for his private life, unless there are restrictions laid down on the basis of or by the law. The right to protection of personal data in EU law is safeguarded by means of Article 8 paragraph 1 of the Charter on the fundamental rights of the European Union and it has been detailed in the General Data Protection Regulation (hereinafter: GDPR). ‘Personal data’ means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (Article 4, beginning and under 1 GDPR). Processing the personal data is only lawful if it is based on one of the grounds mentioned in Article 6 paragraph 1 GDPR. Moreover, any processing of personal data must meet the principles of proportionality and subsidiarity, which implies that an infringement of the interests of the person involved may not be disproportionate to the aim of the processing. Moreover, it should not be possible to reach this aim reasonably spoken in another way which is less disadvantageous to the person involved.
3.3.1. Bescherming van persoonsgegevens is een grondrecht dat wordt gewaarborgd door onder meer art. 8 EVRM, dat voorziet in het recht op eerbiediging van privé-, familie- en gezinsleven, en art. 10 Grondwet, inhoudende dat ieder behoudens bij of krachtens de wet te stellen beperkingen, recht heeft op eerbiediging van zijn persoonlijke levenssfeer. Het Unierechtelijke recht op bescherming van persoonsgegevens is gewaarborgd in art. 8 lid 1 van het Handvest van de grondrechten van de Europese Unie en is uitgewerkt in de Algemene Verordening Gegevensbescherming (hierna: AVG). Een persoonsgegeven is ieder gegeven dat direct of indirect herleidbaar is tot een natuurlijke persoon (art. 4, aanhef en onder 1, AVG). De verwerking van persoonsgegevens is alleen rechtmatig indien zij berust op een in art. 6 lid 1 AVG genoemde grondslag. Voorts moet bij elke verwerking van persoonsgegevens zijn voldaan aan de beginselen van proportionaliteit en subsidiariteit, hetgeen meebrengt dat de inbreuk op de belangen van de betrokkene niet onevenredig mag zijn in verhouding tot het met de verwerking te dienen doel en dat dit doel in redelijkheid niet op een andere, voor de betrokkene minder nadelige, wijze kan worden bereikt.
