Communicated on 29 January 2015
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 62676/11
MAGYAR HELSINKI BIZOTTSÁG
against Hungary
lodged on 29 September 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.
Between 2005 and 2007 the applicant carried out a project aimed at testing a new model for the reform of the Hungarian criminal legal aid system. In pursuit of this project, in 2008 the applicant developed a questionnaire aimed at the assessment of the quality of ex officio legal counsels’ performance.
As an element of this programme, on 10 June 2008 the applicant requested from the Budapest Chief Police Department and the 22 District Police Departments in Budapest the names of public defenders selected by them in 2007 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. Only six District Police Departments complied with the request, and the others refused it on the ground that they did not dispose of the information and that collecting such data would put a disproportionate burden on them. Nonetheless, none of the police departments called into question the public nature of the information.
On 17 July 2008 the applicant brought an action against the Budapest Chief Police Department and the sixteen District Police Departments not complying with the request.
On 8 January 2009 the Pest Central District Court found for the applicant and ordered the respondents to release the requested information within 15 days.
On appeal, on 23 June 2009 the Budapest Regional Court quashed this judgment and remitted the case to the first-instance court. In the resumed first-instance proceedings the District Court sustained anew the applicant’s action. This judgment was upheld on appeal by the Regional Court on 17 June 2010; this court dismissed the respondents’ argument that the collection of the requested data would put a disproportionate burden on them. The respondents lodged a petition for review with the Supreme Court.
On 9 February 2011 the Supreme Court dismissed the applicant’s action. 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. The decision was served on the applicant NGO on 30 March 2011.
Parallel to the above proceedings, the applicant submitted the same request as the one of 10 June 2008 to altogether 28 police departments in seven regions in Hungary concerning the public defenders appointed in 2008. Seventeen police departments complied with the request voluntarily 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 of 1992. However, on 15 September 2009 the Szeged Police Department refused the applicant’s request of 18 August 2009, arguing that it did not dispose of the requested data and that the relevant provisions of the Data Act of 1992 were, in its view, unconstitutional.
On 23 September 2009 the applicant brought an action against the Szeged Police Department before the Szeged District Court. On 25 May 2010 the District Court 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 requested under the Data Act 1992.
On appeal, on 23 September 2011 the Csongrád County Regional Court reversed this judgment and found for the applicant, ordering the respondent to release the information sought. The court reasoned that the public defenders were charged with a task of public interest in so far as they contributed to the implementation of the constitutional right of defence in criminal proceedings
The respondent filed a petition for review.
In its judgment of 6 April 2011 the Supreme Court quashed the second-instance judgment and upheld the one of the District Court. The Supreme Court endorsed its reasoning contained in the judgment of 9 February 2011 and held that public defenders did not exercise any tasks of public interest; thus their names and their appointments did not constitute public information.
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 of 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; and Youth Initiative for Human Rights v. Serbia, no. 48135/06, 25 June 2013)?
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