Legal summary
March 2023
Mitov and Others v. Bulgaria (dec.) - 80857/17
Decision 28.2.2023 [Section III]
Article 10
Article 10-1
Freedom of expression
Freedom to impart information
Freedom to receive information
Abstract complaints on deferred judgment publication requirement and inability to access online case-material and parts of judicial decisions due to Supreme Administrative Court’s rules on anonymisation: inadmissible; Article 10 not applicable
Facts – The applicants are eight journalists from various Bulgarian media specialising in reporting on matters relating to the domestic judicial system and an association whose work focuses on improving the functioning of that system and “protecting human and civil rights”.
They complain under Article 10 about two matters: (a) the 2016 anonymisation rules adopted by the Supreme Administrative Court under which online access to scanned case material (previously available in unredacted form in that court’s online database) was removed, and under which all personal data published in that court’s online database would be redacted from decisions and other case material; and, (b) a 2017 statutory amendment under which final decisions in criminal cases which convicted and sentenced someone or finally upheld convictions and sentences would only be published on the relevant court’s website after steps had been taken to enforce them.
Law –
Article 10: In the present case the Court could not conclude that the information to which the applicants claimed not to have access was instrumental for the exercise of their right to freedom of expression.
In so far as they complained about the Supreme Administrative Court’s 2016 anonymisation rules, there were no particular circumstances on the basis of which to apply the four criteria for right of access to State-held information developed in Magyar Helsinki Bizottság v. Hungary [GC] (namely, (a) the purpose of the information request; (b) the nature of the information sought; (c) the role of the seeker of the information in “receiving and imparting” it; and (d) whether the information was ready and available). The applicants did not complain about a specific piece or even a defined category of information held by a public authority but about the impossibility of accessing on the Internet all scanned case material available in the Supreme Administrative Court’s database and the anonymised parts of all that court’s judgments and decisions. Although the applicants’ role as “public watchdogs” was not in doubt, their argument that all that information concerned matters of public interest and that the impossibility of accessing it hindered them from reporting on such matters was entirely abstract.
Furthermore, the definition of what might constitute a subject of public interest depended on the circumstances of each case. It must be the case that some of the documents and information in question touched upon matters of public interest and that some did not. It was impossible to assess that question – which went to the first and second aforesaid criteria - in the abstract; it could not be said that all judicial review and other cases heard by the Supreme Administrative Court concerned matters of public interest, as that notion was understood in the Court’s case-law, and that all information relating to those cases related, without distinction, to such matters. General statements on why certain types of information held by the authorities ought to be made available were not sufficient to engage Article 10. If the documents and information in question were to be made freely available on the Internet, they would inevitably be available not only to the applicants but also to any member of the public. Moreover, the question whether Article 10 required a State authority to disclose information was different from what form of publicity of judicial decisions would suffice to satisfy the requirements of the second sentence of Article 6 § 1.
Similarly, the applicants’ complaint about the deferred-publication rule did not relate to any particular circumstances; they contested the rule itself. It was impossible thus to assess in the abstract whether that provision would actually hinder their reporting on matters of public interest – that might be so in some cases but not in others. Indeed, when examining delays in making judgments publicly available under the second sentence of Article 6 § 1, the Court has always had regard to the specific circumstances at hand.
It was not for the Court to make abstract pronouncements on how a national court should provide access to the documents in its case files and anonymise its judgments and decisions or as to how quickly they should be published on the Internet.
Conclusion: inadmissible (incompatible ratione materiae).
(See also Magyar Helsinki Bizottság v. Hungary [GC], 18030/11, 8 November 2016, Legal summary).
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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