Court case 202006960/1/A3 – Court Ruling (Netherlands, 2022)

The data subject submitted an access request with the municipality of Westerveld (controller). The controller responded that a name and postal address were insufficient to verify his identity and it needed additional information from the data subject. The data subject then wrote the controller that it would file an appeal against the controller for not responding to his request in good time if it did not respond soon. The controller responded that it already did, and re-sent its previous letter. The data subject therefore submitted an appeal with the court for not responding in good time. The Court considered that by not identifying himself, the data subject was partly responsible for the fact that no decision was made. It noted that the data subject did not argue that the controller's request for additional information was unlawful. The Court held that the data subject's appeal constituted an abuse of procedural rights and deemed the appeal non-admissible. The data subject appealed the court's decision at the Council of State. The Council of State heard the case together with three similar appeals from the data subject, namely 202004183/1/A3, 202006929/1/A3 and 202006950/1/A3 (see comments). Both parties were present at the hearing. During the hearing, the data subject argued that he had not abused his procedural rights. Contrary to the court's consideration, he did argue that the controller's request for additional information was unlawful. The data subject stated that the fact that he did not respond to the controller's unlawful request did not make his appeal an abuse of his procedural rights. The Council stated that abuse of procedural rights is only present if a right or power was used so blatantly without reasonable purpose or for a purpose different from that for which they were granted, that the use of those rights or powers shows bad faith.RvS 19 November 2014, ECLI:NL:RVS:2014:4135. A more or less excessive reliance on government offered facilities does not in itself constitute an abuse of rights.RvS 27 January 2016, ECLI:NL:RVS:2016:157. However, the frequency with which a given right or power is used combined with other circumstances, may contribute to the conclusion that an abuse of rights has taken place. In this regard, the Council noted that the data subject lodged thirteen appeals for requests submitted to different municipalities. The Council noted that the controller rightfully considered a name and PO box insufficient to establish his identity. The controller was therefore entitled to ask the data subject for further information pursuant to Article 12(6) GDPR.RvS 9 December 2020, ECLI:NL:RVS:2020:2927. The data subject did not disputed this either. The Council followed that the data subject did not respond to invitations from any of the municipalities to make contact. Nor did he choose to wait for the decisions on his requests. He immediately loged appeals after his notices of default, followed by requests for periodic penalty payments. Considering the data subject's procedural conduct, the Council believed that the data subject was only out to collect penalty payments. The Council also took into account that at the data subject only expressed concerns about the question whether the periodic penalty payments awarded would be paid at the hearing, but not about whether he would still receive his personal data. Therefore, the Council held that in the present case there were compelling grounds to establish that the data subject abused his right to appeal against the failure to decide in due time on his requests, as referred to in article 3:13 and read in conjunction with article 3:15 of the Civil Code. The appeal at the Council is unfounded and the Court's judgement should be upheld.