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A court annulled a blanket denial of documents, ruling the public authority failed to assess them individually or forward the request, though it rightly considered third-party privacy outweighed the requester’s right to information.
== English Summary ==
=== Facts ===
On 23 October 2021, an individual submitted an access request to the Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Republic under the Slovak Freedom of Information Act (Act No. 211/2000 Coll.; “Freedom of Information Act”). The request concerned documents exchanged in proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Shiksaitov v. Slovak Republic (applications nos. 56751/16 and 33762/17).
The request covered all submissions made by the Slovak Republic to the ECtHR, all submissions made by the applicant in those proceedings, and all annexes attached to those documents.
The Ministry partially granted the request. It disclosed certain government submissions but anonymised parts of the documents. It refused to disclose the applicant’s complaint in full, parts describing the facts of domestic criminal proceedings, file numbers of domestic cases, information relating to the applicant’s financial claims for just satisfaction, and all annexes attached to the government’s submissions. The Ministry relied mainly on Section 11(1)(d) of the Freedom of Information Act (information relating to court decision-making) and Section 9(1) and (2) of the same Act (protection of personality, privacy, and personal data).
The requester appealed within the administrative procedure. He argued that the Ministry had misapplied the statutory exceptions, failed to consider partial disclosure, and did not properly explain which legal grounds applied to which parts of the withheld information. The Ministry dismissed the appeal and upheld its original decision.
The requester then brought an action before the Administrative Court in Bratislava, seeking annulment of the Ministry’s decisions and a remittal for new proceedings.
=== Holding ===
The Administrative Court in Bratislava annulled the Ministry’s decision and remitted the case for further proceedings. The court held that the Ministry had partly applied the Freedom of Information Act correctly but had committed a legal error in refusing access to the annexes.
The court began by stressing that the right of access to information is a fundamental constitutional right. Public authorities must interpret exceptions narrowly and must always prefer disclosure over non-disclosure. A refusal is lawful only if it is based on law, pursues a legitimate aim, and is necessary and proportionate in a democratic society.
The court first examined whether the requested information constituted personal data. Relying on the definition of personal data under [[Article 4 GDPR#1|Article 4(1) GDPR]] and Slovak data protection law, the court held that the applicant in the ECtHR proceedings was an identifiable natural person. The requested information therefore constituted personal data, including the applicant’s complaint, descriptions of domestic criminal proceedings, domestic case file numbers, and information about financial compensation claims.
The court then balanced the right of access to information against the right to privacy and personal data protection. It found that the applicant in the ECtHR case was a private individual and not a public figure. The proceedings did not concern a matter of public interest. In these circumstances, the protection of personal data prevailed. The court therefore agreed that the Ministry lawfully refused access to the applicant’s complaint, domestic file numbers, factual descriptions of criminal proceedings, and information about financial claims. The court added that the Ministry should have explained this balancing exercise more clearly in its reasoning, but the outcome itself was lawful.
However, the court reached a different conclusion regarding the annexes to the government’s submissions. The Ministry had refused to disclose them in full because it was not their originator, held only photocopies, and could not assess whether disclosure was lawful. The court held that this approach violated the Freedom of Information Act.
The court explained that possession of copies meant that the information was available to the Ministry. Availability triggered a duty to assess disclosure. If the Ministry was not objectively able to assess whether legal grounds for restriction applied because it was not the originator of the documents, it had to forward the request, in whole or in part, to the competent authority that originated the documents, in accordance with Section 15(1) of the Freedom of Information Act. The Ministry could not lawfully refuse access solely because it lacked competence to evaluate the documents.
The court also found that the Ministry failed to apply the principle of partial disclosure. It did not identify the annexes individually, did not examine whether only parts required protection, and did not explain why complete non-disclosure was necessary. This amounted to a blanket refusal, which the Freedom of Information Act does not permit.
Because the refusal relating to the annexes was based on an incorrect legal assessment, the court annulled the Ministry’s decision and returned the case for new proceedings. The Ministry was bound by the court’s legal interpretation and had to reassess the request in line with the duty to maximise access to information.
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== English Machine Translation of the Decision ==
The decision below is a machine translation of the Slovak original. Please refer to the Slovak original for more details.
<pre>
could not be made available and the applicant was provided with these documents after excluding the information that could not be made available. The content of the administrative file remained only the resulting forms of the documents as they were made available to the applicant. At the time of processing the applicant’s request for access to information, the documents in question were part of the administrative file in their entirety. 32. As far as the alleged violation of Section 23(3) of the Administrative Procedure Code was concerned, it was necessary to state that Section 23(3) of the Administrative Procedure Code concerned the procedure of the administrative authority in the event of exercising the right to inspect the file. However, in the legal case in question, neither the applicant nor any other person exercised the right to inspect the file. In a situation where there was no reason for the procedure under Section 23(3) of the Administrative Procedure Code, the absence of an official record of the exclusion of information from the file could not be described as a procedural defect.
33. Following the plaintiff’s reference to the decision of the Regional Court in Bratislava, file no. 6S/350/2016, it was necessary to state that in the given case the court annulled the decision of the public administration body as a result of a so-called fictitious decision and not because of the impossibility of examining the extent of anonymization. It was not even adequate for the plaintiff to point to the said decision of the Regional Court in Bratislava, because in the given legal case the court pointed out that the anonymized judgment was not part of the administrative file, which was a completely opposite situation to the plaintiff’s legal case in question. In this context, it was also necessary to point out the relevant legal regulation, according to which, in an action against a decision refusing to disclose information, the court could request the information in question for the purpose of verifying the defendant’s claim, but it did not then include it in the court file or deliver it to other participants in the proceedings or persons participating in the proceedings. 34. On the defendant’s website, within the published list of hearings in a specific hearing, the participants in the proceedings or parties to the proceedings were not identified in the manner specified by the plaintiff: by title, name and surname, or by name or business name. Only the subject of the proceedings, court, judge, date of the hearing, section, file number, IČS, form of action and room of the hearing were published. It was not true that such publication made it possible to associate personal data with specific court decisions. As regards public access to the list of hearings as a potential source of information on the personal data of the parties to the proceedings, this list could be viewed by the public exclusively directly on the day of the hearing in the court building on a notice board by the hearing room, from which it was not possible to conclude that the personal data of the parties to the proceedings were publicly available to anyone and at any time on the basis of the published list of court hearings, as claimed by the plaintiff. If the courts, in accordance with Section 82ba of the Courts Act, published the data in the court building and on the defendant’s website to the extent resulting from the legal norm in question, this was a lawful method of processing personal data. However, this did not mean that subsequently the personal data to the extent of the identification of the parties to the proceedings in the manner resulting from Section 82ba of the Courts Act were not protected in any way and could be freely disseminated. Any other method of handling the personal data that is not based on the law would constitute a violation of the principle of legality and the principle of purpose limitation pursuant to Sections 6 and 7 of Act No. 18/2018 Coll. on the protection of personal data and on amendments and supplements to certain acts, as amended (hereinafter referred to as the “Act on the Protection of Personal Data”). 35. The Decree on Administrative and Office Procedures regulated in Section 64 the institution of issuing official certificates from court files, which, however, were not publicly available and were only available upon request. The legal regulation in question did not in any way eliminate the reason for the protection of personal data under the Freedom of Information Act, since the Decree on Administrative and Office Procedures allowed a precisely defined group of persons to gain access to information from court files, but did not ensure access to the public as such to the information. Even if it were true that, pursuant to Section 64 of the Decree on Administrative and Office Procedures, any natural person will have access to the personal data of the natural person concerned, this does not mean that there is no reason to protect these personal data when making information available under the Freedom of Information Act. VI. Proceedings before the Administrative Court 36. Based on Section 3, Paragraph 1 and Paragraph 3 of Act No. 151/2022 Coll. on the Establishment of Administrative Courts and on Amendments to Certain Acts (hereinafter referred to as the “Act on the Establishment of Administrative Courts”), the Administrative Court in Bratislava began its activities on 01.06.2023 and at the same time the exercise of justice was transferred from the Regional Court in Bratislava, the Regional Court in Nitra and the Regional Court in Trnava to the administrative court in all matters in which the jurisdiction of administrative courts has been given since 01.06.2023. The case filed at the Regional Court in Bratislava under file number
1S/27/2022 was therefore randomly assigned to Chamber 6S of the Administrative Court in Bratislava for legal reasons in accordance with the previous sentence and is filed under file number BA-1S/27/2022.
37. The Administrative Court, as a court with substantive and territorial jurisdiction to hear the case pursuant to Sections 10 and 13(1) of Act
No. 162/2015 Coll. on the Administrative Court Procedure as amended (hereinafter referred to as the “SSP”) in conjunction with Section 3
Paragraph 3 (b) of the Act on the Establishment of Administrative Courts, reviewed the contested decision, including the proceedings preceding its issuance, and concluded that the action is well-founded. The Administrative Court ruled at the hearing on 02.12.2025.
VII.
Relevant legal provisions
38. According to § 3(1) of the Freedom of Information Act, everyone has the right to access information held by obliged persons.
39. According to § 9(1) of the Freedom of Information Act, information concerning the personality and privacy of a natural person, personal documents, likenesses, images and video and audio recordings relating to a natural person or their personal expressions shall be made available by an obliged person only if this is provided for by a special law or with the prior written consent of the person concerned. If the person concerned is not alive, such consent may be provided by a person close to him/her; Consent is not required if it concerns the disclosure of personal data of a deceased data subject for scientific purposes, statistical purposes, archiving, documentation activities, historical research, burial ground activities, placing monuments and memorial plaques, holding commemorative events and memorial services to the extent necessary for its fulfilment. The provisions of special regulations are not affected by this. 40. According to Section 9(2) of the Freedom of Information Act, the obliged person shall disclose information on the personal data of a natural person that is processed in an information system under the conditions laid down in a special act only if so provided by law or on the basis of the prior written consent of the data subject. If the data subject does not have the capacity to perform legal acts, such consent may be provided by his or her legal representative. If the data subject is not alive, such consent may be provided by a person close to him or her; consent is not required if it concerns the disclosure of personal data of the deceased data subject for scientific purposes, statistical purposes, archiving, documentation activities, historical research, burial ground activities, placement of monuments and memorial plaques, holding commemorative events and memorial services to the extent necessary for its fulfillment. 41. According to Section 11(1)(d) of the Freedom of Information Act, the obliged entity shall limit the disclosure of information or shall not disclose information if it concerns the decision-making activities of a court, including international judicial bodies or a body involved in criminal proceedings, except for information that is disclosed pursuant to a special regulation, decisions of a police officer in preparatory proceedings pursuant to Part Two of Chapter Two of Part Five of the Criminal Procedure Code and information on the filing of charges, including a description of the act, unless their disclosure is prohibited by law or unless their disclosure does not threaten rights and legally protected interests.
42. According to Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act, all restrictions on the right to information shall be implemented by the obliged person by making the requested information available, including accompanying information, after excluding the information for which this is stipulated by law. The right to refuse to make information available shall only last as long as the reason for non-disclosure persists.
43. According to Section 15(1) of the Freedom of Information Act, if the obliged person to whom the request is directed does not have the requested information available and if he is aware of where the requested information can be obtained, he shall forward the request within five days from the date of receipt of the request to the obliged person who has the requested information available, otherwise he shall reject the request by decision (Section 18).
44. According to Section 18(2) of the Freedom of Information Act, if the obliged person does not comply with the request, even in part, he shall issue a written decision to that effect within the period specified by law.
45. According to Section 22(1) of the Freedom of Information Act, 1 of the Freedom of Information Act, unless otherwise provided for in this Act, the general rules on administrative procedure shall apply to proceedings under this Act.
46. According to Article 4(1) of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (hereinafter referred to as the “GDPR”),
for the purposes of this Regulation, personal data means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (hereinafter referred to as the “data subject”); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person.
47. According to Section 2 of the Personal Data Protection Act, personal data are data relating to an identified
natural person or an identifiable natural person who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to a generally applicable identifier, to another identifier such as a name, a surname, an identification number, location data or an online identifier, or to one or more characteristics or features specific to his or her physical, physiological, genetic, psychological, mental, economic, cultural or social identity.
VIII.
Legal assessment of the case by the administrative court
48. The subject of the administrative judicial review in these proceedings was the defendant’s decision in the matter of the request for disclosure of information. The task of the administrative court was, within the limits of the objections to the claim,
to assess whether the defendant, when issuing this decision and in the proceedings preceding its issuance,
proceeded in accordance with the relevant legal regulations and established judicial practice. The objections to the claim themselves, more precisely the degree of their specificity and justification, determined the extent and detail of the administrative court’s response to these objections.
49. Since the subject of the administrative judicial review in these proceedings was the decision of a public administration body in the matter of the request for disclosure of information, the administrative court initially recalls that the right to
information constitutes one of the fundamental pillars of a democratic and constitutional state. The constitutional right to seek, receive and disseminate information, through which the exercise of public authority can be subjected to public control, is a right belonging to every individual.
50. Entities defined by the Freedom of Information Act (hereinafter referred to as “obliged persons”) are obliged to make information available under the conditions and in the manner established by the Freedom of Information Act.
If an obliged person receives a request for disclosure of information under the Freedom of Information Act,
in accordance with the principle of good administration, it is its primary duty to make efforts to find the requested information and provide it to the applicant. It is the task of the obliged person, who has been entrusted by law with informing the public to the widest possible extent, to be able to use all the procedural tools at its disposal for this purpose. The obliged person should therefore be a professional knowledgeable in the law,
who will accompany the applicant through the process of making information available in such a way that he or she is satisfied to the maximum extent. Simply put, the obliged entity should seek ways to comply with a request for access to information as widely as possible and not reasons for not complying with such a request.
51. The obligation of the obliged entity to seek ways to comply with a request for access to information as widely as possible and not reasons for not complying with such a request does not, of course, mean that the obliged entity should always and under all circumstances necessarily find a way to disclose the requested information. The obliged entity may restrict access to information requested under the legal regime of the Freedom of Information Act, but only for reasons arising from the relevant provisions of this legal regulation (Sections 8 to 13 of the Freedom of Information Act). If the obliged entity does not intend to comply with a request for disclosure of information made under the legal regime of the Freedom of Information Act, it must, in its decision that the request in question does not comply with it, specify the reason for non-disclosure of the requested information arising from the Freedom of Information Act and must also duly justify its conclusion on the existence of such a reason. The obliged entity must not forget that the restriction of the right to information, which falls under the category of fundamental rights and freedoms, is possible only if three conditions are met, namely legality (interference with this right may only be carried out on the basis of and in accordance with the law), legitimacy of the aim (the Constitution of the Slovak Republic exhaustively lists the reasons for restricting the right to information) and necessity of the intervention in a democratic society. The obliged entity must duly justify the fulfilment of these conditions for restricting the right to information in relation to the factual and legal circumstances relating to the specific request for disclosure of information. 52. With regard to the possibility of the obliged entity to limit access to information, it is necessary to prefer an extensive perception (i.e. a perception aimed at expanding) of the obliged entity’s obligation to make information available to a more restrictive perception, more benevolent towards limiting the disclosure of information, which results from the requirement to minimize interference with fundamental rights and freedoms – the right to information. The relevant provisions of the Freedom of Information Act should therefore be interpreted in the sense that the restriction on the disclosure of the requested information by the obliged entity should be as small as possible. Non-disclosure of information should represent an ultima ratio option for the obliged entity, while such an extreme solution then imposes increased demands on the justification of the decision of the obliged entity to not disclose information, which must be equivalent to the extent of non-disclosure. 53. In view of the above-mentioned grounds, it was necessary to assess the legal matter under review within the limits of the claims, taking into account (taking into account the plaintiff’s objection to the unreviewability of the defendant’s decision) that the first-instance decision and the decision on the ordinary remedy, such as the contested decision, form a single whole, therefore the reasoning behind these decisions cannot be viewed in isolation, but must be viewed in their interconnectedness. 54. The Administrative Court found from the administrative files that the defendant made part of the information requested by the plaintiff available to the plaintiff in the form of attachments to the email message dated 04.11.2021 sent to the email address specified by the plaintiff in his request for access to information. The Administrative Court further found from the administrative files,
with particular regard to the ruling of the first-instance decision, that the defendant did not comply with the plaintiff’s request
for disclosure of information in connection with Section 11(1)(d) in conjunction with Section 9(1) and (2)
of the Freedom of Information Act in part by refusing to disclose the complainant’s complaint against
the Slovak Republic, in part by anonymizing the disclosed government’s position on the admissibility
and merits of complaint No. 56751/16 and No. 33762/17 in relation to the designation of the file numbers of the national proceedings (hereinafter referred to as the “partial non-disclosure of the file numbers of the national proceedings”), the facts of the criminal proceedings and annexes, as well as in part of the anonymization of the disclosed government statement on the complainant’s position and his claims for just satisfaction dated 12.03.2020 in relation to the file numbers of the national proceedings and the complainant’s financial claims for compensation (hereinafter referred to as the “information on the complainant’s financial claims for compensation”).
55. Since the defendant, in the partial non-disclosure of the information requested by the plaintiff, applied (among other things) the legal provisions set out in Section 9(1) and (2) of the 2 of the Freedom of Information Act, it is clear that in the legal case under review, the question of whether the information requested by the plaintiff or a part thereof is of personal data nature was of fundamental importance, and if so, whether this personal data or a part thereof can be made available to the plaintiff under the legal regime of the Freedom of Information Act. The Administrative Court therefore initially proceeded to assess the nature of the information requested by the plaintiff. 56. When assessing the nature of the information requested by the plaintiff from the perspective of whether this information constitutes personal data, the Administrative Court relied on Art. 4(1) GDPR, according to which “personal data” means “any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person”. According to the settled case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, the use of the expression “any information” in the definition of the term “personal data” in that provision reflects the legislator’s intention to give this term a broad meaning, potentially encompassing all types of information, both objective and subjective, in the form of opinions or assessments, provided that it “concerns” the data subject. Information then concerns an identified or identifiable natural person if, by reason of its content, purpose or effect, it relates to an identifiable person (e.g. judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Case L. H., C-710/2023 of 03.04.2025, paragraph 21). Such a concept of personal data as provided for in the GDPR is (and must be) reflected in the law on the protection of personal data. 57. In the case under review, it is clear that the applicant’s request for access to information concerned (at least) an identifiable natural person, namely the applicant in the case of Shiksaitov v. Slovak
Republic (applications no. 56751/16 and no. 33762/17) before the European Court of Human Rights. Since personal data are any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person, and since the information requested by the applicant concerned (at least) an identifiable natural person, the information requested by the applicant was in the nature of personal data.
58. Following the assessment of the nature of the (undisclosed) case numbers of national proceedings, the administrative court adds, beyond the scope of the above, that the case number of national proceedings may constitute personal data, if there is additional information that is or could be available to another entity, which could use it to identify a specific natural person to whom the relevant national proceedings relate. When assessing whether certain information may constitute personal data within the meaning of the relevant legal regulation, it is necessary to proceed in accordance with the objective concept of personal data. Following this argument, the administrative court points to the conclusions presented in Czech administrative judicial practice (e.g. judgment of the Czech Supreme Administrative Court, file no. 3As/76/2022 of 24.08.2023). The Administrative Court also notes that in the case under review, if the case numbers of the national proceedings, which were anonymised by the defendant, were made available, there could be no doubt as to which specific natural person they relate to, and therefore the case numbers of the national proceedings in question must be considered personal data.
59. Following the assessment of the nature of the information on the financial claims for compensation of the complainant, the Administrative Court states that this data relates to (at least) an identifiable natural person and therefore constitutes personal data. The Administrative Court considers it appropriate to add in this regard that, on the basis of this data, it would be possible to form a judgment about the personality of the complainant as the person to whom the data in question relates.
60. Having established the conclusion that the information requested by the plaintiff was of the nature of personal data, the administrative court proceeded to assess the question of whether these personal data or a part thereof can be made available to the plaintiff in the legal regime of the Freedom of Information Act. In connection with this question, the administrative court recalls that the Constitution of the Slovak Republic directly establishes the right to information, but the Constitution of the Slovak Republic also establishes the right to protection of privacy and the right to protection of personal data follows from it. From this fact alone, it is clear that the Constitution of the Slovak Republic itself assumes certain limits to the right to information given (among other things) by the right to protection of privacy and the right to protection of personal data. It is not necessary to elaborate on the importance of not only the right to information, but also the importance of protection of personal data. Personal data are part of a person’s identity and their protection is desirable primarily for reasons of preserving the privacy of each individual.
61. In the context of the application of the right to information in relation to information relating to proceedings before a public authority, within which personal data also come within the sphere of disposal of the public authority, it cannot be overlooked that the right to information does not automatically include the right to provide personal data of the participants in the proceedings before the public authority. The right to information includes the right to provide personal data of the participants in the proceedings before the public authority if a legitimate interest in them becoming part of the public debate can be identified. Such a legitimate interest is given primarily in the case of persons with public activity, if they appear in the proceedings before the public authority precisely in connection with their public function, or if knowledge of their participation in the proceedings is a relevant fact for the formation of public opinion about the qualities of the person who performs or seeks to perform a public function. The extent to which personal data is provided will be determined by the intensity of the relationship between the specific proceedings before a public authority and the partial personal data and the public activity of the person concerned, or exceptionally by the importance of the person concerned’s function for the state. When assessing the question of whether the right to information also includes the right to provide personal data of participants in proceedings before a public authority, it is necessary to take into account the nature of the proceedings before the public authority and the position of a certain person in the proceedings before the public authority. 62. Summarizing the above, when assessing the question of whether the information requested by the plaintiff or a part thereof can be made available to the plaintiff under the legal regime of the Freedom of Information Act, it was necessary to balance the right to information on the one hand and the right to protection of privacy, or the right to protection of personal data, on the other hand, in the relevant factual and legal circumstances of the legal case under review. Balancing the right to information on the one hand and the right to protection of privacy, or The defendant also acted correctly when it made part of the information requested by the plaintiff available and did not make the specified part of the information requested by the plaintiff available in the ruling of the first-instance decision. In this regard, it is necessary to add that the defendant should have paid more attention to the balancing of the right to information on the one hand and the right to privacy or the right to personal data protection on the other hand in the justification of its decision. 63. The Administrative Court agreed with the defendant’s conclusion that in the case of the plaintiff’s complaint, the plaintiff’s right to privacy or the right to personal data protection contained in the complaint prevailed over the plaintiff’s right to information. The plaintiff’s complaint and the facts stated therein undoubtedly closely affect the personality and privacy of the plaintiff, who was also identified in the published decision of the European Court of Human Rights. Also in the case of the description of the facts of the criminal proceedings, in the case of the non-disclosed file marks of the national proceedings and in the case of the information on the financial claims for compensation of the complainant, the complainant’s right to privacy or the right to protection of personal data prevailed over the plaintiff’s right to information. When balancing the plaintiff’s right to information and the plaintiff’s right to privacy or the right to protection of personal data in relation to the plaintiff’s complaint requested by the plaintiff, in relation to the description of the facts of the criminal proceedings, in relation to the non-disclosed file marks of the national proceedings and in relation to the information on the financial claims for compensation of the complainant, the administrative court took into account the fact that the complainant defended his own rights by filing the complaint, as the defendant also stated in the first-instance decision, and this was justified, as follows from the decision of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Shiksaitov v. Slovak Republic (complaints no. 56751/16 and no. 33762/17),
as well as the fact that the complainant was not a publicly active person (nor a publicly known person).
Finally, neither the content of the administrative file nor the content of the court file suggests that the case of Shiksaitov v. Slovak Republic (complaints no. 56751/16 and no. 33762/17) is a matter of public interest.
64. As regards the complainant’s statement that the complainant did not request the European Court of Human Rights to keep his identity confidential, the administrative court states that the obliged entity, when processing a request for access to information made under the legal regime of the Freedom of Information Act, proceeds in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act, as the defendant reasonably pointed out. The mere fact that certain personal data or data relating to the privacy of a natural person has been published somewhere by someone does not automatically mean that the legitimate interest of this natural person in the protection of his or her personal data and in the protection of his or her privacy is thereby consumed. 65. Summarizing the above, the administrative court concluded that if the defendant did not disclose the complainant’s complaint against the Slovak Republic, the file numbers of the domestic proceedings, the facts of the criminal proceedings and information on the complainant’s financial claims for compensation, he or she acted in accordance with the relevant legal regulation, namely the legal regulation laid down in Section 9(1) and (2) of the Freedom of Information Act. 66. Having established the conclusion that the defendant acted in accordance with the relevant legal regulation by not disclosing the complainant’s complaint against the Slovak Republic, the case files of the domestic proceedings, the facts of the criminal proceedings and information on the complainant’s financial claims for compensation, the administrative court proceeded to assess the question of the legality of the defendant’s decision in the part of the non-disclosure of the annexes to the disclosed government position (hereinafter referred to as the “annexes to the government position”), which the plaintiff requested to be disclosed in his request for disclosure of information. In particular, the administrative court took into account the fact that in this part the defendant justified his decision by referring to the legal regulation set out in Section 11(1)(d) of the Freedom of Information Act and quite clearly based his argumentation on the application of this legal regulation, while not disclosing the annexes in question even partially. For the sake of completeness, the administrative court states that the defendant, in relation to the non-disclosure of the case files of national proceedings and the non-disclosure of the facts of the criminal proceedings, referred in the first-instance decision to the legal provision in Section 11(1)(d) of the Freedom of Information Act, but in the reasoning of the contested decision it stated that the first-instance authority also correctly applied the provisions of Section 9(1) and (2) of the Freedom of Information Act in restricting the disclosure of information, since when disclosing information it was necessary to take into account that the information disclosed could affect the protection of personality and privacy and personal data of natural persons. At the same time, the non-disclosed case files of national proceedings and the non-disclosed facts of the criminal proceedings were part of the documents that were otherwise mostly disclosed. For the reasons stated, it was not possible to automatically apply the conclusions presented in relation to the non-disclosure of the annexes to the government’s position, which the plaintiff requested to be disclosed in his request for disclosure of information, to the non-disclosure of the file numbers of the domestic proceedings and the non-disclosure of the facts of the criminal proceedings. In this connection, it should be added that the defendant did not specify (mark) in any detail the annexes to the government’s position, which the plaintiff requested to be disclosed in his request for disclosure of information, and which the defendant did not disclose. 67. As regards the non-disclosure of the annexes to the government’s position, which the applicant requested to be disclosed in his request for disclosure of information, the administrative court found from the first-instance decision that the defendant stated in it that when preparing the position on the applicant’s complaint, he did not have these documents as such, and that he only had photocopies made for the purpose of attaching them as annexes to the proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights. The defendant, according to his own statement, was not the primary authority that conducted/led the proceedings in which the documents in question were issued, and for this reason he was not capable of evaluating and assessing without further ado the status of the proceedings in question and any reasons for refusing to disclose the requested documents. It is clear from the above that the defendant had photocopies of the requested documents and that he therefore had photocopies of the requested documents at his disposal. However, this fact did not automatically establish the defendant’s obligation to make photocopies of the requested documents available. In fact, following a request for access to information made under the legal regime of the Freedom of Information Act, the obligated person must assess not only whether the requested information is available to him, but also whether any of the reasons for restricting access to the requested information are present. In other words, the obligated person is obliged to make the information available to him under the legal regime of the Freedom of Information Act subject to the cumulative fulfilment of two conditions, namely the condition that the requested information is available to him and the condition that there is no legal reason for restricting access to the requested information. If the defendant therefore concluded that when processing the plaintiff’s request for access to information in the part relating to the annexes to the government’s position, it was necessary to take into account the legal regulation laid down in Section 11(1) of the Act. d) of the Freedom of Information Act and assess whether there is no reason to restrict access to the annexes to the government’s position within the meaning of this legal norm, this conclusion was correct.
68. Even if the defendant’s conclusion that when processing the plaintiff’s request for disclosure of information in the part relating to the annexes to the government’s position it was necessary to take into account the legal regulation set out in Section 11, Paragraph 1, Letter d) of the Freedom of Information Act and assess whether there is no reason to restrict access to the annexes to the government’s position within the meaning of this legal norm was correct, his further subsequent conclusion, according to which a reason was given for not complying with the request in question in the said part, i.e. in the part relating to the annexes to the government’s position, pursuant to Section 11, Paragraph 1, Letter d) of the Freedom of Information Act d) of the Freedom of Information Act, because the defendant was not able to evaluate and assess the status of the proceedings in question and the possible reasons for refusing to disclose the requested documents without further ado, was no longer correct. The defendant, as an obliged person, should have been a professional knowledgeable in the law who should have guided the plaintiff as the applicant through the process of disclosing the information in such a way that he would be satisfied to the maximum extent, and therefore should have sought ways to satisfy the plaintiff’s request for disclosure of the requested information as widely as possible, including in relation to the annexes to the government’s position. If the defendant found that he was not the originator of the information that the plaintiff requested to be disclosed, i.e. that he was not the originator of the documents requested by the plaintiff, and that as a result he could not properly assess whether there were reasons to restrict the plaintiff’s access to the requested information, i.e. document
requested by the plaintiff, should have forwarded the request for disclosure of information in the given part to the originator
of the information, i.e. the originator of the documents requested by the plaintiff, who, by the nature of the matter, had to have
available the documents necessary for assessing the said issue. In this regard, the Administrative Court points to
Section 15(1) of the Freedom of Information Act, according to which, if the obliged person to whom the request is directed
does not have the requested information available and if he is aware of where the requested information can be
obtained, he shall forward the request to the obliged person who has the requested information available.
69. For the sake of completeness, the administrative court states that when initially approaching the content of the legal norm set out in § 15(1) of the Freedom of Information Act, i.e. when applying the grammatical method of interpreting this legal norm, it might appear that the legal norm in question concerns “only” cases where the obliged entity to whom the request is directed “does not have the requested information available”, and that this legal norm therefore cannot apply to the legal matter under review, since the defendant had photocopies of the requested documents at his disposal. However, it cannot be overlooked that the grammatical method of interpreting legal norms represents “only” an initial approach to the content of the legal norm. When interpreting legal norms, it is also necessary to apply other methods of interpreting them. In other words, when interpreting legal norms, it is necessary to bear in mind that determining the content and meaning of a legal norm is always a methodological procedure, within which none of the interpretative methods has absolute priority, while the individual methods applied should complement each other and lead to a comprehensible and rationally justified explanation of the text of the legal norm, and that an untenable moment in the use of law is its application based solely on the grammatical method of interpreting legal norms. The mechanical application of law, abstracting or not realizing the meaning and purpose of the legal norm, makes law an instrument of alienation and absurdity. 70. Bearing in mind the above-mentioned rules for interpreting legal norms, the administrative court, in connection with the legal norm stipulated in Section 15, para. 1 of the Freedom of Information Act reiterates that the obliged person is obliged to disclose the information requested in the legal regime of the Freedom of Information Act upon the cumulative fulfilment of two conditions, namely the condition that the requested information is available to it and the condition that there is no legal reason for restricting access to it in relation to the requested information. Processing a request for disclosure of information therefore requires an assessment of the fulfilment of both of the above conditions. Since the mere fact that the obliged person to whom the request is directed has the requested information available does not automatically mean that it is obliged to disclose it, and since in relation to some information within the scope of the obliged person’s disposal, the obliged person cannot, without reasonable doubt, exclude the possibility of the existence of a legal reason restricting access to it, the legal norm set out in Section 15(1) 1 of the Freedom of Information Act must be interpreted as meaning that the obliged person to whom the request is directed is obliged to forward the request for disclosure of information or part of it to another obliged person from whom the requested information can be obtained, if the requested information is available to it, but it is not its originator and in relation to the specific requested information, the existence of a legal reason restricting access to it cannot be ruled out without any reasonable doubt, while the obliged person to whom the request is directed is not itself objectively able to assess whether there is a legal reason for restricting access to it in relation to the requested information, and at the same time the obliged person to whom the request is directed is aware of which other obliged person it would be possible to obtain the requested information from. Only such a procedure will satisfy the requirement that the non-disclosure of objectively existing information required under the legal regime of the Freedom of Information Act to the maximum extent possible shall occur only on the basis of a material assessment of the question of whether there is a legal reason for restricting access to the information in question. 71. In connection with the above, the administrative court adds that although the defendant did not specify in his decision the originators of the documents, photocopies of which were the annexes to the government’s position requested by the plaintiff, it can be concluded from the wording of the reasoning of the first-instance decision that at least some of them were national authorities, and thus entities subject to the information obligation under the Freedom of Information Act. The defendant stated in the first-instance decision that “the originators of such documents, the photocopies of which were annexes, are entities other than the Ministry, and these are found in the corresponding files of these entities (in some cases, also in the bodies of another country); the Ministry only has photocopies.” If therefore the originators of some documents were “also in the bodies of another country”, then logically the originators of other documents were national bodies. In other words, the legal case under review was not a case where the originators of all the requested documents were bodies of another state, which would not be subject to the information obligation under the Freedom of Information Act. 72. Summarizing the above, the administrative court concluded that if the defendant did not comply with the plaintiff’s request for disclosure of information in the part relating to the annexes to the government’s position, pointing out that it was not the primary authority that carried out/led the proceedings in which the documents in question were issued, and for this reason was not capable of evaluating and assessing the status of the proceedings in question and the possible reasons for refusing to disclose the requested documents, its decision was based on an incorrect legal assessment of the case. 73. As regards the complaint alleging the absence of the requested documents/information in the administrative files, this was unfounded. The administrative court finds it proven from the administrative files that the defendant was provided with all the documents necessary for assessing the legal case in question. Part of the first-instance administrative file is the information of the Office of the Representative of the Slovak Republic before the European Court of Human Rights dated 27.10.2021, which states that the Government’s position on the admissibility and substance of the complaint in question, the complainant’s statement and the Government’s statement on the complainant’s position and his claim for just satisfaction are transmitted to the Department of Contractual Relations and Access to Information by a short route. Part of the second-instance administrative file is then a document regarding the sending of the appeal, which explicitly states the following text: “In the attachment, we are sending you the documents necessary for the decision. We are also submitting the administrative file in question.” 74. As for the complaint of denial of the plaintiff’s opportunity to comment on the documents of the first-instance decision, or the contested decision before their issuance, this was not well-founded. The normative regulation
provided for in Section 33(2) of the Administrative Procedure Code is of only limited use in proceedings under the Freedom of Information Act
which results from the special nature of such proceedings, i.e. proceedings in the matter of
disclosure of information required under the legal regime of the Freedom of Information Act, associated
with a short deadline for issuing a decision and the issuance of a so-called fictitious negative decision in the event of
failure to issue a decision within the statutory deadline.
75. As regards the objection that the operative part and reasoning of the contested decision
and the first-instance decision lack relevant reasons for restricting access to information,
the Administrative Court states that in the operative part of the first-instance decision the defendant explicitly stated that the plaintiff’s request for disclosure of information in a specified part is not satisfied pursuant to Section 11(1)(d)
in conjunction with Section 9(1) and (2) of the Freedom of Information Act. The defendant subsequently explains in the reasoning of the first-instance decision and then in the reasoning of the contested decision why he classified the information in question under these reasons for non-disclosure of information. Thus, in the operative part of the first-instance decision, the defendant explicitly defined the legal norms on the basis of which he decided as stated in the operative part of the first-instance decision, and subsequently in the reasoning of this decision, he proceeded to clarify his considerations regarding the application of these legal norms in the legal case in question. 76. The Administrative Court did not further address in detail the other objections stated in the application, as it did not consider them to be of fundamental importance for the decision on the merits. According to the case law of the Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic, it cannot be inferred from the Constitution of the Slovak Republic or the European Convention on Human Rights that the reasons given by the court must deal separately with each point that any of the participants in the proceedings may consider to be essential for their argumentation (mutatis mutandis I. ÚS
56/01). In connection with proper reasoning, it should be noted that, based on the consistent case law of the European Court of Human Rights (including the cases of García Ruiz v. Spain, judgment of 21.01.1999, application no. 30544/96, Ruiz Torija v. Spain, judgment of 09.12.1994, application no. 18390/91, Van de Hurk v. the Netherlands, judgment of 19.04.1994, application no. 16034/90), it is not necessary for the court to give a detailed answer to each complaint. According to the standard case law of the court reflecting the principle of the proper administration of justice, judicial decisions must sufficiently contain the reasons on which they are based. The obligation to state reasons for a decision cannot be understood in the sense that it is necessary to deal with every argument.
77. With reference to the above, after examining the specific relevant objections to the claim, the Administrative Court concluded that the claim is well-founded, since the contested decision is based on an incorrect legal assessment of the case, and therefore, in accordance with the procedure pursuant to Section 191(1)(c) of the Code of Civil Procedure, it annulled it and returned the case to the defendant for further proceedings.
78. In the further proceedings, the defendant will be bound by the legal opinion of the Administrative Court expressed in this judgment. The defendant’s task will be to decide again on the applicant’s appeal in the light of the legal opinion of the Administrative Court expressed in this judgment and to justify its decision in a clear and sufficient manner.
79. The Administrative Court decided on the costs of the proceedings pursuant to Section 167(1)(c) of the Code of Civil Procedure. 1 SSP, according to which the successful
plaintiff was granted the right to full compensation of the reasonably incurred costs of the proceedings against the defendant, the amount of which the administrative court will decide upon after the entry into force of this judgment by a separate resolution.
80. This decision was adopted by the panel of the administrative court with a vote of 3:0 (Section 139(4) SSP).
Instruction:
A cassation appeal may be filed against this judgment within one month of its delivery to the
Administrative Court in Bratislava (Section 493e SSP in conjunction with Section 443(1) SSP). Missing the deadline for filing a cassation appeal cannot be forgiven (Section 443(5) SSP).
In addition to the general requirements (Section 57 of the SSP), the cassation appeal should include the designation of the contested
decision, the date when the contested decision was delivered to the complainant, a description of the decisive
facts so that it is clear to what extent and for what reasons it is being filed pursuant to Section 440 of the SSP
(points of the appeal) and a draft of the ruling of the decision (draft of the appeal). The points of the appeal may only be changed
until the expiry of the deadline for filing a cassation appeal.
A cassation appeal may only be justified by the fact that the administrative court violated the law in the proceedings or in the decision-making process by: a) the court was not given the authority to decide on the matter in the administrative judiciary, b) the person who acted as a party to the proceedings did not have procedural subjectivity, c) the party to the proceedings did not have the capacity to act independently before the administrative court to the full extent and was not represented by a legal representative or procedural guardian, d) a final decision has already been made in the same matter or proceedings have already been initiated in the same matter, e) the matter was decided by a disqualified judge or an incorrectly constituted administrative court, f) by incorrect procedural procedure it prevented the party to the proceedings from exercising his or her procedural rights to such an extent that the right to a fair trial was violated, g) it decided on the basis of an incorrect legal assessment of the matter, h) it deviated from the established decision-making practice of the court of cassation, i) did not respect the binding legal opinion expressed in the annulling decision on the cassation appeal or
j) the submission was unlawfully rejected (Section 440, paragraph 1 of the SSP).
The ground for the cassation appeal referred to in paragraph 1, letters g) to i) shall be defined in such a way that the complainant states the legal assessment of the matter that he considers to be incorrect and states what constitutes the incorrectness of this legal assessment. The ground for the cassation appeal cannot be defined in such a way that the complainant refers to his submissions before the administrative court (Section 440, paragraph 2 of the SSP).
In the cassation appeal proceedings, the complainant or the omitted complainant within the meaning of Section 449, paragraph 1 of the SSP must be represented by a lawyer. The cassation appeal and other submissions of the complainant or the omitted complainant must be drafted by a lawyer. Mandatory representation by a lawyer in cassation proceedings is not required if a) the complainant or the omitted complainant, his employee or member, who acts for him or represents him in the Court of Cassation, has a second-degree university law degree; b) the proceedings concern administrative action pursuant to Section 6, Paragraph 2, Letters c) and d); c) the defendant is the Legal Aid Centre.
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