The fundamental right of data protection in the European Union: in search of an uncharted right

The entry into force of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the ensuing introduction of the right to data protection as a new fundamental right in the legal order of the EU has raised some challenges. This article is an attempt to bring clarity on some of these questions. We will therefore try to address the issue of the place of the right to the protection of personal data within the global architecture of the Charter, but also the relationship between this new fundamental right and the already existing instruments. In doing so, we will analyse the most pertinent case law of the Court of Luxembourg, only to find out that it creates more confusion than clarity. The lesson we draw from this overview is that the reasoning of the Court is permeated by a ‘privacy thinking’, which consists not only in overly linking the rights to privacy and data protection, but also in applying the modus operandi of the former to the latter (which are different we contend). The same flawed reasoning seems to be at work in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Therefore, it is crucial that the different modi operandi be acknowledged, and that any upcoming data protection instrument is accurately framed in relation with Article 8 of the Charter.     

Exploring the non-absolute nature of the right to data protection

In two recent judgements, the Court of Justice of the European Union stated that ‘The right to the protection of personal data is not, however, an absolute right, but must be considered in relation to its function in society’ (Eifert, para 48). This paper considers the ‘non-absolute’ nature of the right to data protection. Being a relatively new right, the boundaries of this right in the Charter are still somewhat unexplored. This paper considers five aspects that can be seen as setting boundaries to the otherwise absolute nature of the right to data protection: (a) consideration of the function of the right to data protection in society; (b) positive delimitations of the right that come from the formulation of the right (Article 8) in the Charter; (c) limitations on the right provided for in Article 52 of the Charter; (d) close connections with Article 7 of the Charter and Article 8 ECHR; and (e) the detailed provisions in current data protection secondary legislation and the future data protection regulation framework. Based on the reflections on each of these boundary-setting aspects, the paper argues that in spite of occasional vagueness and conflicting approaches of each of the aspects, understanding of the right to data protection has evolved since its first formulation in the Charter. There is a subtle and gradual distancing from the initial understanding of the close relationship with the right to private and family life. This gradual distancing is a positive development as the two have different foundations, scope and purposes. Yet it is only when both are taken together that the shared common objective of providing effective protection to citizens' personal and family life can be achieved.     

Supranational Fundamental Rights or Primacy of Sovereignty?

This analysis explores in detail various aspects of the possible legal impact of ‘British’ Protocol No 30 (the so‐called opt‐out from the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights). On the basis of a legal appraisal, it concludes that the Protocol is not in any way to be understood as a substantial derogation from the standard of protection of fundamental rights in the EU or as an ‘opt‐out’ from the Charter in a substantial sense. Nevertheless, its significance is definitely not to be underestimated. Its adoption as a source of primary law enshrines a legally binding interpretation of the Charter and, in particular, an interpretation of its horizontal provisions. In Article 1(2) and Article 2, the Protocol in fact confirms that the application of the Charter cannot lead to a change in the existing competencies framework. These provisions are of a declaratory nature and apply to all Member States. In Article 1(1), the Protocol is of a constitutive nature since it rules out an extensive interpretation of what can be considered national legal acts adopted in the implementation of EU law only for those States signed up to the Protocol. This specifically means that if, in the future, as part of the application of the Charter, the Court of Justice of the EU (ECJ) has a tendency to subsume a certain area of national legislation under the ‘implementation of Union law’ outside the field of implementing standards, in the spirit of the Ellinki Radiophonia Tileorassi judgment (and subsequently allow their reviewability with respect to their conformity with the Charter), such action would be admissible only for those Member States that have not acceded to the Protocol. However, the Protocol cannot exclude the continued application of the general principles of law instead of the positively constituted fundamental rights in the Charter by the ECJ.     

The Sinews of Peace: Rights to Solidarity in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union

Abstract. This article examines the provisions on social and economic rights contained in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. After a conceptual clarification of the terms “fundamental rights” and “rights to solidarity,” three main claims are made. First, not all rights to solidarity are granted the status of fundamental rights in the Charter, in contrast with the treatment of the right to private property. Second, positive law does not justify such an approach. An analysis of the sources of the Charter clearly indicates that the right to private property is not a proper fundamental right as Community law stands. Third, rights to solidarity could be construed as a repository of arguments that Member States and regions could invoke when claiming an exception to the four fundamental freedoms.     

The Horizontal Effect of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU: Rediscovering the Reasons for Horizontality

This article analyses the horizontal effect of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Horizontal effect has been an integral part of the Union's application of fundamental rights, especially in the field of equality. However, the codification of fundamental rights in the Charter raises important questions as to how horizontal effect will continue to apply in the EU, particularly in the aftermath of the Court's reticent rulings in cases such as Dominguez and Association de Médiation Sociale. This article argues that the emphasis on prior approaches to horizontal effect in recent rulings fails to address the profound constitutional issues that the horizontal effect of a fundamental rights catalogue raises, which concern the role of private responsibility within the developing constitutional order of the European Union. It therefore calls for a more systematically theorised approach towards the horizontal application of fundamental rights under the Charter framework.     

Fair Trial Rights and the European Community's Fight Against Fraud

The article surveys action taken by the European Community to combat fraud affecting its financial interests, focusing on the development of investigative authority granted to OLAF, the European‘Office Pour La Lutte Anti Fraude’ and its impact on the procedural rights of the alleged defrauder. It shows that the involvement of OLAF can be crucial for a national fraud investigation and subsequent criminal prosecution and that it meets the criteria set out by the Strasbourg organs for the applicability of Article 6 ECH. The article explores whether the legal sources governing the activities of OLAF or national—or rather, Community—law guarantee sufficient protection for the alleged defrauder and thus pay respect to principles arising from the rule of law in law enforcement. It is shown that general principles of Community law, which were mostly established in antitrust law, may provide a certain protection for the suspect, but may not protect him in all regards. It is thus argued that, in the long run, it will be necessary to provide special fair‐trial rights which offer protection to alleged defrauders from those infringements arising out of the specific features of a Community investigation.     

Still in Deficit: Rights,Regulation, and Democracy in the EU1

Abstract: Critics of the EU's democratic deficit standardly attribute the problem to either sociocultural reasons, principally the lack of a demos and public sphere, or institutional factors, notably the lack of electoral accountability because of the limited ability of the European Parliament to legislate and control the executive powers of the Commission and the Council of Ministers. Recently two groups of theorists have argued neither deficit need prove problematic. The first group adopts a rights‐based view of democracy and claims that a European consensus on rights, as represented by the Charter of Fundamental European Rights, can offer the basis of citizen allegiance to EU wide democracy, thereby overcoming the demos deficit. The second group adopts a public‐interest view of democracy and argues that so long as delegated authorities enact policies that are ‘for’ the people, then the absence of institutional forms that facilitate democracy ‘by’ the people are likewise unnecessary—indeed, in certain areas they may be positively harmful. This article argues that both views are normatively and empirically flawed. This is because there is no consensus on rights or the public interest apart from the majority view of a demos secured through parliamentary institutions. To the extent that these remain absent at the EU level, a democratic deficit continues to exist.     

Going Unnoticed? Diagnosing the Right to Asylum in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union

Article 18 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union enshrines the right to asylum. Nonetheless, despite its ‘constitutionalisation’ within primary law, asylum remains a far too amorphous right, whose axiological potential has gone virtually unnoticed in the ongoing migratory crisis. The paper will argue that this is partly due to the fact that the Court of Justice on a few occasions has declined to clarify the scope of Article 18. The provision at issue therefore remains a pathological element that requires an adequate diagnosis on which accurate prognoses can be based. In an attempt to diagnose the right to asylum enshrined in Article 18 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU, this paper will compare different hermeneutical approaches and reflect on the contextualisation of the mentioned provision through the lens of domestic and EU case law and in the light of the recent EU–Turkey Statement. The article will ultimately propose to interpret the EU asylum legislation as instrumental to the effective exercise of the right to asylum.     

Human Dignity in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and its Interpretation Before the European Court of Justice

This article argues that the EU Charter’s dignity provisions must be given a specific, expansive European meaning that underpins the importance the EU places on fundamental rights protection as a principle EU value. To this end, the article examines the EU Charter provisions on dignity and critically analyses the case law before the EU Charter had full legal effect and after it did. It finishes with looking at three areas in which the potential for an expansive interpretation of dignity could help bring the EU closer to its people and fully respect and protect dignity: asylum, criminal justice and sexual orientation.     

O'Keeffe v Ireland: The Liability of States for Failure to Provide an Effective System for the Detection and Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse in Education

In O'Keeffe v Ireland, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights found that Ireland failed to protect the applicant from sexual abuse suffered as a child in an Irish National School in 1973 and violated her rights under Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment) and Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the European Convention on Human Rights. This note argues that the decision is important in expanding the Court's jurisprudence regarding positive obligations under Article 3 to child sexual abuse in a non‐state setting where there was no knowledge of a ‘real and immediate’ risk to the applicant. It also argues that the case raises concerns about the Court's methodology for the historical application of the Convention and about the interaction of Article 3 positive obligations with vicarious liability in common law tort regimes.     

Disproportionate Sentences as Human Rights Violations

The article explores the concepts of disproportionality and gross disproportionality in sentencing. Several constitutions or human rights documents prohibit grossly disproportionate sentences, either expressly or impliedly. The draft constitution of the European Union has a Charter of Fundamental Rights that includes the right not to be subjected to a disproportionate sentence. The possible meaning and application of this are discussed by reference to the development of related constitutional jurisprudence in other jurisdictions.     

搜查与隐私权保护——加拿大宪法与美国宪法第4修正案之比较

<加拿大权利与自由宪章>第8条赋予了公民反对不合理的搜查和扣押的权利.与美国宪法第4修正案的发展历程类似,经由加拿大最高法院的判例解释,<宪章>第8条确立了隐私权的宪法保护.基于对美国宪法判例的批判和借鉴,<宪章>第8条下的隐私权在判断标准、保护范围方面体现了本国特色.第8条下隐私权具备的丰富内涵,不仅得益于加拿大最高法院确立的隐私权旨在促进的诸项基本价值,也与加拿大较为宽泛的非法证据排除规则有关.     

The Symbiosis of Property and English Environmental Law – Property Rights in a Public Law Context

This article argues that environmental regimes entailing considerable administrative discretion are now serving to contextualise and partly to constitute property rights in English law. In particular, rights to use land are ‘democratised’ to varying degrees through the administration of environmental regulation, and are adapted to land‐use problems on an evolving basis. In return, property rights affect environmental regulation, through legal protections for property interests, although the nature of the discretion exercised within environmental regimes seems to determine the kind and extent of this symbiotic influence. As a result, environmental law challenges property scholars to reflect on the impact of administrative decision‐making on property rights, conceptually, doctrinally and in terms of its legitimacy. At the same time, environmental lawyers need to take seriously the nature and legal treatment of property rights in the application and analysis of modern environmental law.     

Clashing Rights, the Welfare of the Child and the Human Rights Act

Under the Human Rights Act so far there has been until very recently little judicial or even academic recognition of the difference between resolving clashes of Convention rights and addressing conflicts between utilitarian concerns and such rights. This article has chosen to illustrate that failure of recognition and to consider methods of resolving the conflict between rights, by concentrating on one particular clash of rights – that between media free speech under Article 10 and the privacy of children under Article 8. It argues for presumptive equality for the two rights and for conducting a 'parallel analysis' of their application to the circumstances of a particular case. It contends that therefore the principle that the child's welfare is paramount must be abandoned in its present form, as must the presumptive priority accorded to Article 10 where that principle is not found to apply.     

Privative clauses in special education legislative schemes: are they constitutional under the Canadian Charter?

This paper suggests that privative clauses in the enabling statutes (Education Acts) governing provincially appointed special education appeal tribunals (SET) are unconstitutional under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is suggested that ‘final and binding’ SET decisions about children's designation as special needs and their educational placement infringe upon the Charter rights of both parent and exceptional child. The standard for judicial review of SET decisions, given a privative clause, is whether the decision is ‘patently unreasonable’ while ‘correctness’, according to case law, is the appropriate standard when finally determining fundamental rights. Parents of exceptional children in practice have recourse to the courts regarding only procedural rather than substantive issues regarding SET decisions due to the high deference the courts afford any administrat ive tribunal protected by a privative clause. The very high judicial review standard of ‘patently unreasonable’ rather than ‘correctness’ is not consistent, furthermore, with the child's ‘best interests’ or in meeting international obligations to disabled children under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.     

Delfi AS v Estonia: The Liability of Secondary Internet Publishers for Violation of Reputational Rights under the European Convention on Human Rights

In October 2013, the European Court of Human Rights in Delfi AS v Estonia upheld a decision of the Estonian Supreme Court to impose liability on the owners of an internet news portal for defamatory comments which had been posted on their website by anonymous third parties. This note suggests that the decision is important in the context of publications with a ‘public interest’ element to them, because it appears to afford more protection to the right to reputation (deriving from the Article 8 right to privacy) and less to freedom of expression than was formerly the case. It is further argued that the Court's emphasis on the positive obligation of states to protect this right to reputation may mean that the existing English law in this area, including, potentially section 5 of the Defamation Act 2013, is inconsistent with the ECHR jurisprudence.     

Citizen Led Policing in the Digital Realm: Paedophile Hunters and Article 8 in the case of Sutherland v Her Majesty's Advocate

In Sutherland v Her Majesty's Advocate, the Supreme Court unanimously dismissed an appeal which argued that the use of communications obtained by a paedophile hunter group as evidence in criminal prosecution was a violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The case raises fundamental questions of the scope of the right to private life as regards to the content of communications and the role played by private actors in the criminal justice process. This note argues that by limiting the protection of Article 8 to private communications which satisfy a contents-based test, the Court has bypassed the Article 8(2) balancing test to the detriment of the due process rights of the accused. The note concludes that the decision opens up the prospect of the state circumventing the accused's Article 8 privacy rights by lending tacit approval to the proactive investigations of these private ‘paedophile hunter’ groups.     

Ethno-National Narratives of Human Rights: The Northern Ireland Policing Board

Policing in Northern Ireland has undergone one of the world's most extensive human rights reform programmes. The challenge has been whether the human rights paradigm can serve as a mutual basis for the region's sparring ethno-national communities to deliberate over long-contested issues of policing, accountability and justice. This article focuses on the Northern Ireland Policing Board as an arena to examine the contemporary political attitudes and agendas that animate the Board's statutory duty to monitor policing on the basis of human rights. Marshalling qualitative data and drawing on legal anthropology, this article offers an account of the ‘social life’ of human rights and policing in the context of Northern Ireland's imperfect peace. It argues that, irrespective of legal standards, human rights oversight harbours deep sentiments and concerns, at the heart of which are communities’ own historical engagements with rights, competing legacies of the conflict and divergent understandings of contemporary policing.     

Towards a common standard of protection of the right to housing in Europe through the charter of fundamental rights

The trend towards the financialisation of housing since the 1980s and the global financial crisis exposed a dramatic lacuna in the legal protection of the right to housing. Yet, the right to housing features not only in national and international human rights instruments, but also in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Charter rights are increasingly finding expression in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). In particular, drawing on the Charter, the CJEU's interpretation of EU consumer law is moving towards a recognition of housing rights as inherent components of consumer protection. On the basis of such developments, this article examines whether there is scope to extend this human rights approach to new areas – namely, to the Mortgage Credit Directive (2014) – a major EU harmonising measure – and to the work of EU institutions now responsible for banking supervision. The article concludes that, if guided by the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the case law of the CJEU and the practice of supranational banking supervision could significantly enhance the protection of the right to housing, both at EU and Member State level.     

实现正义——公平审判权在中国的发展

文章强调了一个有效的辩护援助体系对保障公平审判权的必要性。为了保障穷人能够平等地享有正义,一个国家必须拥有一套提供给他们律师的机制。文章分析了促使一个国家为她的公民建立有效公平审判权的关键因素。文章首先论述了,中国的法律援助体系在其公民权利保护进程中扮演的关键角色和继续发展法律援助对中国长远利益的必要性。其次,本文表明了,国际组织怎样通过培训和能力培养方式在支持权利保护的进程中发挥巨大作用。最后,文章指出只有充分尊重中国的自治,国际合作才能发挥更大作用。文章特别展示了IBJ的经验,以显示国际组织如何与中国政府开展合作,成功地提高中国公民权利保护水平。