Case Law of the European Court of Human Rights and the Supreme Court of Estonia in Disclosing Personal Data in Court Judgments

• Author: Tuuli Hansen
• Pages: 17-25

Tuuli Hansen

Judicial clerk

Tartu Administrative Court

Case Law of the European

Court of Human Rights and the

Supreme Court of Estonia on

Disclosing Personal Data

in Court Judgements

1. Introduction

Increased interest of the public in the protection of personal data is manifested in the increasing number

of applications to courts dealing with the rights of a data subject to contest further data processing and be

forgotten.*1 The concept of personal data undoubtedly involves the name of a person in association with his

or her procedural position and the details on his or her activities revealed in judgements.*2

The object of the article is to compare the case law of the Administrative Law Chamber of the Supreme

Court of Estonia (ALCSC)*3 and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in publishing judgements

on the merits of individual petitions in 2013 and 2014*4 in Internet-based judgement databases.*5 The objec-

tive is to f‌i nd regularities in the protection of the applicants’ personal data in the publishing of decisions.

The article examines the provisions regulating the disclosure of personal data in the judgements of the

ECtHR and the ALCSC and analyses how parties to proceedings are informed of the possibilities for pro-

tecting their right to privacy. The case law analysis focuses on determining the f‌i elds in which anonymity is

ensured for applicants by request of a party to a proceeding or at the court’s initiative.

1 Internet: Case-Law of the European Court of Human Rights. Council of Europe; European Court of Human Rights 2011, p. 10. Avail-

able at http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Research_report_internet_ENG.pdf (most recently accessed on 8.8.2015).

2 Analogously, the Court of Justice has found that the concept of personal data undoubtedly covers the name of a person in

conjunction with his telephone coordinates or information about his working conditions or hobbies. ECJ 6.11.2003, C-101/01,

Bodil Lindqvist.

3 The author analyses the case law of the Administrative Law Chamber since the decisions of the Supreme Court and of the

ECtHR are the most similar from the point of view of a party to a proceeding – a person has turned to court against the state

in relation to violation of his or her rights or freedoms.

4 Decisions on cases declared admissible by the courts.

5 The author has also analysed the ECtHR’s practice in applying anonymity over a shorter period in the earlier article T. Hansen.

Euroopa Inimõiguste Kohtu praktika kohtuotsustes isikuandmete avaldamisel (Case Law of the European Court of Human

Rights in Relation to the Disclosure of Personal Information). – Juridica 2014/4, pp. 313–324 (in Estonian).

http://dx.doi.org/10.12697/JI.2015.23.02

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JURIDICA INTERNATIONAL 23/2015