Access to Court Decisions The right to anonymity in the sphere of personal data protection. Best practices

Anonymity 1. Common understanding 2. Legal Framework 3. Global Consequences

Definiton of Anonymity Concept that evokes an absolute lack of connection between a piece of information or an action and a person Anonymisation –NEEDED FOR: Ethical Reasons Legal Reasons Commercial Reasons

Anonymity and Protection of Personal data Anonymous data Data, in origin or after being processed, can not be associated with an identified or identifiable data subject. Court decisions –anonymous only after data subjects had their data being processed at first

Council of Europe Recommendation states when the information about the data subject is not identifiable: when the identification of the data subject requires an unreasonable amount of time and manpower

Art. 29 Data Protection Working Party : The test of identifiability is a dynamic one that should consider state-of-the-art technology at the time of processing. Even though the anonymity depends upon context and can be evaluated on a case-by case bases, there are some rules about DATA PROTECTION which need to be followed always when the personal data must be anonymised

Anonymity and Protection of Personal data Personal Data must be obtained for a specified and lawful purpose shall not be processed in any manner incompatible with that purpose shall be adequate, relevant and not excessive for those purposes shall be kept up to date shall be kept for no longer than is necessary for that purpose must be processed in accordance with the data subject's rights must be kept safe from unauthorized access, accidental loss or destruction

All data subjects must be informed about how any personal data collected about them will be: used stored processed transferred destroyed

How do the principles of processing the personal data must be implemented in providing the publicity and openness of the court decisions?

B ASIC LAW PRINCIPLES ACCORDING TO CIVIL CODE OF PROCEDURE  Lawfulness  Principle of disposition  Ex-officio principle  Principle of the contest  Equity of the parties  Finding the truth  Publicity and directness  Inner belief  Hearing and deciding lawsuits within a judicious term

C ONTENTS OF THE DECISION 1. date and place of pronunciation; 2. indication of the court, the names of the judges, of the clerk and of the prosecutor, if he has participated in the lawsuit; 3. the number of the lawsuit, on which the decision is pronounced;

4. the names, respectively the name and the address of the parties; 5. what the court decides in its merits; 6. whom the expenses are awarded; 7. if the decision is a subject to appeal, before which court and within what period it can be appealed.

P UBLICITY OF THE COURT DECISIONS IN BULGARIA – Action Plan / against corruption, organized crime and towards judicial reform and proficiency of the judicial system/ – in adequacy with the European Union mechanisms 2008 – Claim to the Commission for Personal Data Protection, Bulgaria, asking for legal opinion 2009 – Legal Statement of the Supreme Judicial Court 2010 – Launching of the Register of all court decisions – central-based one

S UPREME J UDICIAL C OURT 1. Legal framework 2. Rules for the publicity of the court decisions 3. Technological procedure of the publication 4. Duties of the administrative managers of the courts 5. Launching of an European project about the reform of legislative framework of the judicial system

P URPOSES OF THE PUBLICATION Transparency for the entire justice system Facilitating the parties Enrichment and standardise the legal practise

Automated System for the Management of Court Decisions USAID – sponsored programe for the development of a new software handling with the documents in the entire judicial system Management of the trial records Selection of the judge that will be the speaker on the lawsuit and afterwards – the one responsible to send the court decision to the system administrator to have the personal data anonymised

D IFFERENT KINDS OF COURT DECISIONS Decrees JudgementsRulings

E XCEPTIONS TO THE RULE 1. Decisions on preserving procedures 2. Decisions on private claims 3. Decisions with medical data or any sensitive data 4. Decisions on lawsuits handling with classified information 5. Banking data, data about insurance If a judge decides that a decision should be published, even from the ones above, he/she writes a written motives about the publicity and upon approval it can be published

REGULATION FOR THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE COURTS OF APPEAL, REGIONAL COURTS, COURTS – MARTIAL AND DISTRICT COURTS

Bulgarian Judicial System 113 District Courts 28 Regional Courts 5 Courts of Appeal

Record Department  Structure of a court / district and regional one/  People, responsible for the publicity of the court decisions  Functions  Mechanisms of control  Cooperation

Transformations Desislava Borisova - D.B ID - ******** ID insurance - ************ insurance bank account - **********bank account Name of the judge – Name of the judge Name of the company – Name of the company Type of the vehicle – Type of the vehicle

FREE ACCESS TO ALL DATABASE, STORED AND EASILY ACCESSED THROUGH THE YEAR AND THE NUMBER OF THE LAWSUIT

Thank you for your attention! Desislava Borisova Workshop on Access to Court Decisions, the Right to Anonymity and Data Protection Skopje, 9-10 May 2012