RIGHT OF ACCESS TO INFORMATION HELD BY PUBLIC AUTHORITIES
THROUGH THE ASPECT OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT AND THE POSITIONS OF THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.30925/zpfsr.38.1.18Keywords:
right of access to information; right to personal data protection; Constitutional Court; European Court of Human Rights; principles; public interest testAbstract
The right of access to information held by public authorities was introduced
into the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia, as a constitutional guarantee, with
the changes of the Constitution in 2010. At the legislative level, this was introduced
into the legal system through the Right of Access to Information Act of 2003. As
defi ned in the Right of Access to Information Act of 2013, currently in effect, the right
of access to information includes the right of users to seek and receive information,
as well as the obligation of public authorities to provide access to the requested
information, or to publish information independently of the submitted request when
such publication arises from an obligation laid down by law or another regulation.
This paper presents the current legal regulation, the position of the European Court of
Human Rights and an analysis of the examples of the decisions of the Constitutional
Court that relate to informing the interested public when adopting regulations, and
to cases in which the question arises of whether the right of access to information
outweighs the opposing right to the protection of personal data, also guaranteed by
Article 37 of the Constitution, and elaborated in the Personal Data Protection Act. It is
stated that the restrictions of the right of access to information must be proportionate
to the nature of the need to restrict it in each particular case, and necessary in a free
and democratic society, and that these restrictions are prescribed by law. The author
highlights the principles of the right of access to information, and the importance of
the public interest test. The author refers to the legal positions stated in the judgment
in the case of Társaság a Szabadságjogokért v. Hungary, which the Constitutional
Court has applied in its decisions.
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