Abstract
The recent Decision 89/2022 of the Spanish Tribunal Constitucional (SCC) on the right to be forgotten is a welcome occasion to revisit the abundantly scrutinized phenomenon of a couple of European constitutional courts, such as the Austrian Verfassungsgerichtshof (ACC) and the German Bundesverfassungsgericht (GFCC), enlarging their fundamental rights jurisdiction to the EU legal order through the adoption of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (EUCFR) as a yardstick in this prominent dimension of their mandate. By all its singularities, this judgment arguably embodies an evolution in the case law of a very similar court that, up to now, could have been dubbed as quietist in comparison with the bold steps undertaken by their older sisters. Additionally, this somewhat puzzling decision merits attention as it facilitates a comparison with its German counterpart, Right to be forgotten II. Just as the German decision enlightens the recent Spanish ruling, so does the latter enlighten the former. All in all, the present contribution is a follow-up to some previous treatments on the matter diversely inspired by Rainer Hofmann.
Prof. Dr. Pedro Cruz Villalón. Professor em. in Constitutional Law, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain.
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Notes
- 1.
Decision 89/2022, of 29.06.2022, ECLI:ES:TC:2022:89.
- 2.
Decision U 466/11-18, of 14.03.2012 (“Charter Decision”).
- 3.
Orders of the First Senate of 6.11.2019, 1 BvR 16/13, Right to be forgotten I (BVerfGE 152, 152) and 1 BvR 276/17, Right to be forgotten II (BVerfGE 152, 216).
- 4.
Cruz Villalón (2021), p. 76.
- 5.
BVerfGE 152, 216.
- 6.
Hofmann and Heger (2021).
- 7.
Also known as separation thesis, Rauchegger (2020), p. 261.
- 8.
Cruz Villalón (2020), p. 380.
- 9.
- 10.
Cruz Villalón (2021), p. 57.
- 11.
Wendel (2020), p. 1396.
- 12.
Decision 89/2022, of 29.06.2022, ECLI:ES:TC:2022:89.
- 13.
Separate opinion of the Vicepresident of the Court, Xiol Rios, and Judge Balaguer Callejón. To note that Judge Balaguer was Judge-Rapporteur in Decision 58/2018.
- 14.
European Court of Justice, C-399/11, ECLI:EU:C:2013:107, judgment, 26.02.2011 – Stefano Melloni v Ministerio Fiscal.
- 15.
Decision 26/2014, of 13.02.2014. ECLI:E:TC:2014:26. Particularly visible in its contrast with the accompanying dissenting opinions.
- 16.
European Court of Justice, C-617/10, ECLI:EU:C:2013:105, judgment, 26.02.2013 – Åklagaren v Hans Åkerberg Fransson; European Court of Justice, C-399/11, ECLI:EU:C:2013:107, judgment, 26.02.2013 – Stefano Melloni v Ministerio Fiscal.
- 17.
Decision 58/2018, of 4.06.2018. ECLI:E:TC:2018:58.
- 18.
European Court of Justice, C-131/12, ECLI:EU:C:2014:317, judgment, 13.05.2014 – Google Spain SL and Google Inc. v Agencia Española de Protección de datos (AEPD) and Mario Costeja González.
- 19.
“…governed by European law” (para. 3.b).
- 20.
“Given that the national courts have carried out this balancing by applying the criteria set out in the case law established by the Court of Justice, it is necessary to first examine the latter and its consequences for the balancing of the limits of the fundamental rights in conflict” (para. 3 b, author’s translation).
- 21.
Cit. n. 18.
- 22.
European Court of Justice, C-136/17, ECLI:EU:C:2019:773, judgment, 24.09.2019 – Google G.C. and Others v Commission Nationale de l’informatique et des libertés (CNIL).
- 23.
European Court of Justice, C-507/17, ECLI:EU:C: 2019:772, judgment, 24.09.2019 – Google LLC, successor in law to Google Inc. v Commission Nationale de l’informatique et des libertés (CNIL).
- 24.
“…a constant dialog with the bodies charged with the interpretation of the regional law – in our case the ECtHR in relation to the ECHR and the ECJ in relation to the EUCHR” (para. 3, author’s translation).
- 25.
Globoknik (2020).
- 26.
- 27.
Opinion of Advocate General Szpunar delivered on 10.01.2019 ECLI:EU:C:2019:15.
- 28.
“There would be a genuine risk of a race to the bottom, to the detriment of freedom of expression, on a European and worldwide scale” (para. 61).
- 29.
“However, it should be pointed out that the interest of the public in accessing information may, even within the Union, vary from one Member State to another, meaning that the result of weighing up that interest, on the one hand, and a data subject’s rights to privacy and the protection of personal data, on the other, is not necessarily the same for all the Member States, especially since, under Article 9 of Directive 95/46 and Article 85 of Regulation 2016/679, it is for the Member States, in particular as regards processing undertaken solely for journalistic purposes or for the purpose of artistic or literary expression, to provide for the exemptions and derogations necessary to reconcile those rights with, inter alia, the freedom of information” (para. 67).
- 30.
“…while, as noted in paragraph 64 above, EU law does not currently require that the de-referencing granted concern all versions of the search engine in question, it also does not prohibit such a practice. Accordingly, a supervisory or judicial authority of a Member State remains competent to weigh up, in the light of national standards of protection of fundamental rights. See, to that effect, European Court of Justice, C-617/10, EU:C:2013:105, judgment, 26.02.2013, para. 29 – Åkerberg Fransson and of European Court of Justice, C-399/11, EU:C:2013:107, judgment, 26.02.2013, para. 60 – Melloni, a data subject’s right to privacy and the protection of personal data concerning him or her, on the one hand, and the right to freedom of information, on the other, and, after weighing those rights against each other, to order, where appropriate, the operator of that search engine to carry out a de-referencing concerning all versions of that search engine” (para. 72).
- 31.
Cited are citations of para. 35, 40, 44, 45.
- 32.
Para. 37, 39, 40, 41, 95.
- 33.
Para. 44.
- 34.
BVerfG, Order of the Second Senate of 1.12.2020, 2 BvR 1845/18.
- 35.
Prominently, European Court of Justice, C-128/18, ECLI:EU:C:2019:857, judgment, 15.10.2019 – Dimitri-Tudor Dorobantu.
- 36.
“…inasmuch as the removal of links from the list of results could, depending on the information at issue, have effects upon the legitimate interest of internet users potentially interested in having access to that information, in situations such as that at issue in the main proceedings a fair balance should be sought in particular between that interest and the data subject’s fundamental rights under Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter” (para. 81).
- 37.
“As the data subject may, in the light of his fundamental rights under Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter, request that the information in question no longer be made available to the general public by its inclusion in such a list of results, it should be held, as follows in particular from paragraph 81 of the present judgment, that those rights override, as a rule, not only the economic interest of the operator of the search engine but also the interest of the general public in finding that information upon a search relating to the data subject’s name. However, that would not be the case if it appeared, for particular reasons, such as the role played by the data subject in public life, that the interference with his fundamental rights is justified by the preponderant interest of the general public in having, on account of inclusion in the list of results, access to the information in question” (para. 97, emphasis added).
- 38.
“…whether the inclusion of the link to the webpage is necessary for exercising the right of freedom of information of Internet users potentially interested in accessing that web page by means of such a search, a right protected by Article 11 of the Charter” (para. 66, emphasis added).
- 39.
Para. 53 and 66.
- 40.
“Unlike in the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (cf. European Court of Justice, C-131/12, EU:C:2014:317, judgment, 13 May 2014, para. 81 – Google Spain; European Court of Justice, C-136/17, EU:C:2019:773, judgment, 24.09.2019, para. 53 and 66 – GC and Others), the constellation at hand does not give rise to the presumption that the protection of one’s personality must take precedence in the balancing; however, this is not a question of interpretation that must be clarified by the Court of Justice. The presumption of the Court of Justice, too, was determined by the specific constellations of the cases before it... However, neither the Charter of Fundamental Rights as such nor the case-law of the Court of Justice indicate in any way that the protection of the right of personality and freedom of expression are not generally accorded equal weight when they are balanced against one another. Rather, it can be inferred from the case-law of the Court of Justice that the Court of Justice consistently takes into account freedom of expression in its balancing, insofar as it is applicable, and that other fundamental rights do not generally take precedence over this freedom” (para. 141, emphasis added).
- 41.
“It is necessary to determine first of all, whether access to what has been published contributes to the formation of a free public opinion” (para. 4 b).
- 42.
Para. 5.A., author’s translation.
- 43.
In Right to be Forgotten II, the GFCC had anticipated that “a key indicator for a duty of referral…is if the application of the law in the Member States reflects different interpretations of EU fundamental rights…” (para. 71).
- 44.
European Court of Justice, C-293/12 and C-594/12, ECLI:C:EU:2014:238, judgment, 08.04.2014 – Digital Rights Ireland and Michael Seitlinger. See for the existing preliminary ruling proceedings https://www.vfgh.gv.at/rechtsprechung/referral_for_a_preliminary_ruling.en.html, accessed 30.10.2022.
- 45.
Lenaerts et al. (2021), p. 82.
- 46.
Hofmann and Heger (2021).
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Villalón, P.C. (2023). Still on Constitutional Courts at the Rescue of Their Mandate: The Puzzling Spanish Case. In: Donath, P.B., Heger, A., Malkmus, M., Bayrak, O. (eds) Der Schutz des Individuums durch das Recht. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-66978-5_59
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