Published on 25 March 2024
FIRST SECTION
Application no. 52966/17
Jacek CZARNECKI
against Poland
lodged on 14 July 2017
communicated on 5 March 2024
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns a lustration declaration which the applicant made in 2007.
The applicant was the Mayor of Chełmża community and was obliged by law to make this declaration on a special form. By mistake, he signed the wrong page of the form reading that he had cooperated with secret services instead of the one reading that he had not cooperated. Since then, he has been unsuccessfully trying to have this entry corrected. Even though various authorities acknowledged that the entry had been erroneous, there is apparently no possibility to make any correction in an already submitted declaration.
The applicant complains under Article 8 of the Convention that the lack of legal and factual possibility to correct the wrong entry in his lustration declaration infringes his right to respect for private life. He further alleges a violation of Article 8 read in conjunction with Article 13 of the Convention in that he has no effective remedy in the domestic system whereby he could obtain a correction.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has there been a violation of the applicant’s right to respect for private life contrary to Article 8 of the Convention? Has there been a failure by the State to comply with its positive obligations to protect the applicant’s right to respect for private life under Article 8 of the Convention (see, mutatis mutandis, Joanna Szulc v. Poland, no. 43932/08, § 94, 13 November 2012)?
Reference is made to the fact that the applicant was refused leave by the Institute of National Remembrance to correct erroneous information contained in his lustration statement (oświadczenie lustracyjne).
2. Did the applicant have at his disposal an effective domestic remedy for his Article 8 complaint – namely, that the storage of his erroneous lustration declaration without any possibility of its correction breached his right to respect for private life –, as required by Article 13 of the Convention? Reference is made to numerous attempts made by the applicant to have his declaration corrected, undertaken in various proceedings (including auto‑lustration and civil proceedings for the protection of his personal rights), to no avail.