Court case II Ips 23/2020 – Court Ruling (Slovenia, 2020)

The plaintiff was a former Candidate for a position as a Judge at the European Court of Human Rights in 2014. During this process the defendant (a national media house) published articles on its website stating that the plaintiff had been sentenced to one year and six months imprisonment for domestic violence. The plaintiff (applicant) alleged a violation of the right to privacy for maintaining sensitive personal data on the defendant's website even after the call for judges of the European Court of Human Rights had been closed and the articles were no longer relevant. The Court of first Instance has balanced in it´s decision the collision of protected rights - the plaintiff´s personality rights and the right to privacy on the one side, and the defendant´s freedom of expression, on the other. The Court of Appeal (Višje sodišče v Mariboru) upheld the findings of the Court of First Instance. Therefore, the plaintiff filed a revision (partial renewal of a res judicata judgement) in the part of the decision of the court of appeals regarding the question if a person which was in the past a “relative public figure” loses its status as a “relative public figure” after certain time passes and there is no more interest of the public for that person. The Court held, that a former Candidate for the position of a Judge at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is a “relative public person” or “relative public figure”. When someone becomes a “relative public person”, his field of expected privacy, becomes smaller - in inverse proportion, the more public the function, the more restrictive its privacy rights. The person will be forever in a way a person of public interest regarding the event which made the public interest about him increase. Another question is whether he is entitled to general anonymity and protection of personal data after the event. The answer to this question is not straightforward and depends on the circumstances of each case, in particular the importance of the event itself, the person's role in public life and his or her conduct and public appearance otherwise, the public's interest in accessing the information within a certain period of time after the event, the content and form of the publication. If an article is moved from the public accessible Homepage, to an Archive, which is accessible upon payable Subscription, such a movement actually makes the information publicly disappear. This has in relation to the general public, the same effect as an erasure (Article 17 GDPR). It would be excessive and contrary to the mission of the media to require them to check the relevance of their past publications on an ongoing, daily basis, but they are obliged to do so at the request of the persons entitled to do so, and to take appropriate action if necessary at that time.