SECOND SECTION
Application no. 18030/11
MAGYAR HELSINKI BIZOTTSÁG
against Hungary
lodged on 14 March 2011
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Magyar Helsinki Bizottság (Hungarian Helsinki Committee), is a non-governmental organisation with its seat in Budapest. It is represented before the Court by Mr T. Fazekas, a lawyer practising in Budapest.
A. The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
The applicant NGO is active in the field of monitoring the implementation of international human rights instruments in Hungary and in related advocacy.
In pursuit of its 2005-2007 survey on the quality of defence provided by court-appointed defenders, in 2008 the applicant launched a project with a view to improving the existing model of such appointments. In 2009 an experimental method was put in place, in cooperation with the applicant, the county bar associations and certain county police departments. The key facet of this method was to replace the existing system of discretionary appointments with one randomised by computer. An element of the project was that the applicant requested from altogether 28 police departments the names of the public defenders selected by them in 2008 and the number of appointments per each lawyer involved. These requests were made under section 20(1) of the Data Act 1992, the applicant arguing that the data requested constituted public information.
Seventeen police departments complied with the request and another five did so after court proceedings had been initiated. Some of the remaining ones were successfully sued by the applicant under section 21(1) of the Data Act 1992.
However, on 26 and 27 August 2009 respectively the Hajdú-Bihar County Police Department and the Debrecen Police Department refused the applicant’s requests of 18 August 2009, arguing that the data concerned did not constitute public information.
On 25 September 2009 the applicant brought an action against the two police departments. On 21 October 2009 the Debrecen District Court found for the applicant, ordering the respondents to release the information sought.
On appeal, on 23 February 2010 the Hajdú-Bihar County Regional Court reversed this judgment and dismissed the applicant’s action.
The key consideration of the reasoning was that public defenders did not carry out a task of public interest and that therefore the release of information concerning those defenders could not be successfully demanded under the Data Act 1992.
The applicant filed a petition for review. Relying on decisions of the Constitutional Court as well as on the Convention and the Court’s case-law, it argued that public defenders were charged with a task of public interest in so far as they contributed to the implementation of the fundamental right of defence in criminal proceedings.
On 15 September 2010 the Supreme Court upheld the second-instance decision. Recognising the implementation of the constitutional right of defence as being a task of the State, the Supreme Court nevertheless held that this task was accomplished by the appointment of public defenders, whose subsequent activity was a private one and therefore their names, not constituting public information, could not be retrieved by the applicant.
COMPLAINT
The applicant complains under Article 10 of the Convention that the courts’ refusal to order the surrender of the information in question amounted to a breach of its right to access to information, this right being identifiable in the Court’s recent case-law, in particular in Társaság a Szabadságjogokért v. Hungary, no. 37374/05, 14 April 2009.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
Has there been an interference with the applicant’s right to receive information, within the meaning of Article 10 § 1 of the Convention? If so, was that interference necessary in terms of Article 10 § 2 (see Társaság a Szabadságjogokért v. Hungary, no. 37374/05, §§ 35 to 39, 14 April 2009)?
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy