TrustHLT/LaCour huggingface dataset:
AP1 (Applicant): Only the judgments of the Curia have such binding force.
AP1 (Applicant): Therefore, our reasoning could stop at this juncture.
AP1 (Applicant): There is no well-established case law proving the effectiveness of the legal avenues invoked by the government.
AP1 (Applicant): In any event, the decisions invoked by the government are not even analogous to the present case since their subject matter differs significantly from the applicant's situation.
AP1 (Applicant): Now we turn to the merits of the case.
AP1 (Applicant): The establishment of the existence of interference concerning the right to protection of personal data is not at all problematic.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicant's personal data was processed by the tax authority and by third parties, in particular the press, without his consent and without any safeguard mechanism.
AP1 (Applicant): This is obviously an interference which was not disputed by the government either.
AP1 (Applicant): As to the interference with the right to the protection of reputation, we are of the view that this question is closely related to the applicability of Article 8.
AP1 (Applicant): We analyzed this issue in detail in our written submissions and previously in our speech, and we do not repeat those arguments here.
AP1 (Applicant): However, let us mention some additional arguments.
AP1 (Applicant): The list has only one purpose, shaming the listed person.
AP1 (Applicant): The shaming effect is irrevocably triggered by the publication of the list.
AP1 (Applicant): Therefore, the applicant suffered and is still suffering from the risk that third persons, in particular his friends and colleagues, gain knowledge about his presence on the list.
AP1 (Applicant): This possibility is hanging over the applicant's head as a sword of democracy.
AP1 (Applicant): This risk was far from being just a theoretical one.
AP1 (Applicant): This is shown by the fact that the applicant's teenager son accidentally found out about his father's presence on the list.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicant faced an extremely painful situation where he had to explain to his son, for whom he was a role model, why he was put on the list.
AP1 (Applicant): Moreover, the applicant's reputation was considerably undermined when one of his friends found out about the list and his name on it.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicant again found himself in a very unjust situation.
AP1 (Applicant): The lawfulness of the interference was not disputed by the parties concerning the original publication of the applicant's personal data by the tax authority.
AP1 (Applicant): It was based on the rules of the Tax Administration Act.
AP1 (Applicant): However, the archive list is much more problematic even from this angle.
AP1 (Applicant): As it was discussed in detail in our written submissions, the rule creating the legal basis of the archive list is not enforced since the 10th June, 2021.
AP1 (Applicant): This interference is consequently not in accordance with the law.
AP1 (Applicant): The next step is to establish whether the interference is aimed at achieving any public goal.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicant is of the firm view that the present case gives the Honorable Grand Chamber a perfect opportunity to elaborate further on the notion of margin of appreciation.
AP1 (Applicant): This question shall come into play in two aspects of the case.
AP1 (Applicant): First, concerning the establishment of the public goal allegedly pursued by the respondent state.
AP1 (Applicant): Secondly, the margin of appreciation shall be evaluated in the context of the actual means used by the government.
AP1 (Applicant): We invite the court to take our related arguments into consideration when adjudicating both issues.
AP1 (Applicant): The notion of margin of appreciation as a general rule gives big playing room for the member states in many fields, including taxation, unless the policy choice is manifestly without reasonable foundation.
AP1 (Applicant): However, since the applicant's most intimate private life aspects were at stake, the margin of appreciation shall be a very narrow one in the present case.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicant suggests in this respect laying down some minimum criteria for the member states.
AP1 (Applicant): Namely, there shall be an obligation to show that the aim the states allegedly pursue exists not only in theory, but in practice as well.
AP1 (Applicant): The burden of proof in this respect obviously is on the government's shoulder, and they enjoy wide freedom concerning the means of demonstration.
AP1 (Applicant): However, if the government is not able to put forward any evidence supporting its allegations about the pursued legitimate aim, the consequences shall be strict.
AP1 (Applicant): It cannot be declared being in compliance with the convention.
AP1 (Applicant): The notion of margin of appreciation should not be equated with a carte blanche in favor of any kind of national legislation.
AP1 (Applicant): If it was held otherwise, the rights guaranteed by the convention would be devoid of any substance.
AP1 (Applicant): In the present case, the lack of real intent in improving tax discipline is obvious.
AP1 (Applicant): This was acknowledged by the tax authority itself in their written reply given to the request on disclosing the related public data.
AP1 (Applicant): The tax authority admitted that it lacks any control mechanism or impact assessment in this respect.
AP1 (Applicant): The complete official ignorance towards the result and effects of the tax defaulters list proves that it does not serve the fulfillment of the convention.
AP1 (Applicant): It does not serve the fulfillment of any real public goal.
AP1 (Applicant): The second argument of the government is that the regulation serves the protection of the business interests of third parties.
AP1 (Applicant): However, the government failed to show whether there is even one private individual or a legal entity who could avoid a risky business by obtaining information from the tax defaulters list.
AP1 (Applicant): The government invokes the interests of the contracting parties of the applicant, the securement of state funds, the principle of equal burden and so on.
AP1 (Applicant): The government could not even prove that there is any direct link between these aims allegedly sought and the listing question.
AP1 (Applicant): The government only suggested, but did not prove, that a public shaming list is capable in practice of protecting third parties business interests.
AP1 (Applicant): The putative nature of the aims shows that they are not legitimate ones.
AP1 (Applicant): Now we turn to the proportionality of the measuring question.
AP1 (Applicant): It shall be underlined at the outset that there is a strong suspicion that the legitimate aims relied on by the Hungarian state exist on paper only.
AP1 (Applicant): Targeting a merely formalistic goal cannot represent a pressing social need.
AP1 (Applicant): The definition of pressing social need is a situation that requires immediate and strong response from the state.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicant does not see such an emergency situation in the present case.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicant is of the view that the initial processing of his personal data by the tax authority was not a proportionate measure.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicant's personal data were retained for a longer period of time than was necessary by any standards.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicant's name and home address lost their significance after his tax arrears became unenforceable.
AP1 (Applicant): However, they were still present on the tax authority's website for another couple of weeks.
AP1 (Applicant): The lack of any means of automatic removal from the list constitutes a breach of the data storage principle.
AP1 (Applicant): Moreover, it was not the least intrusive means to select the home address of the applicant for the purposes of the list.
AP1 (Applicant): It is rather surprising that the applicant's taxpayer identification code, a data of purely business and taxation nature, is not included in the list of tax defaulters, despite the fact that it never changes contrary to the home address.
AP1 (Applicant): The government failed to define those contractual relations in which the home address is the only possible personal data which helps to identify the applicant.
AP1 (Applicant): If the applicant enters into business relations, the other contracting party is aware of the applicant's taxpayer identification code, since the contract itself usually contains this data.
AP1 (Applicant): That leads to the conclusion that the publication of the tax identification code instead of the home address would have been a more appropriate measure and would have fulfilled the data minimization criteria as well.
AP1 (Applicant): In order to clarify further this argument, we have to mention another list.
AP1 (Applicant): There is a database of taxpayers who are free of any public debt.
AP1 (Applicant): This list is practically the opposite of the tax defaulters list.
AP1 (Applicant): Is it a positive one?
AP1 (Applicant): Interestingly, on this database, the name and the tax identification code of persons are provided, but their home address is not.
AP1 (Applicant): It means that this data is sufficient for identification purposes.
AP1 (Applicant): The home address is not necessary at all to identify someone in business relations.
AP1 (Applicant): Consequently, the publication of the applicant's home address was an unnecessary and disproportionate measure in the context of protecting third parties' business interests.
AP1 (Applicant): The question of the archive database is even more striking.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicant is permanently on this database.
AP1 (Applicant): Nothing requires the tax authority to ever remove the applicant from this list, which is in clear breach of the prohibition of indefinite period of data retention.
AP1 (Applicant): Third parties may gain knowledge of the applicant's taxpayer past irrespective of their legal interest to doing business with him.
AP1 (Applicant): The longer the applicant's data is on the archive list for no real purposes, the interference with the applicant's Article 8 rights gets more and more indefensible.
AP1 (Applicant): The initial publication of the archive listing, combined with the lack of any procedural safeguards, strongly undermines data protection principles.
AP1 (Applicant): This combination of injustices pursuing highly dubious legitimate aims represents a disproportionate restriction on the applicant's right under Article 8.
AP1 (Applicant): Now we address the question of right to protection of reputation.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicant suffered serious injustices because of his involvement on the tax defaulters list.
AP1 (Applicant): The government alleged that the non-payment of taxes are neutral information.
AP1 (Applicant): These allegations are simply denying the common sense and the way language works.
AP1 (Applicant): It shall be noted in this respect that even the government, contradicting itself, claimed in point 17 of their memorial that the list had neither the intention nor any effect of gratuitous shaming.
AP1 (Applicant): By that, the government itself acknowledged that there is a shaming element in the list.
AP1 (Applicant): It is just not too harsh shaming.
AP1 (Applicant): We need to raise the question, is there such thing that gratuitous public shaming?
AP1 (Applicant): We think that there is only one type of public humiliation carried out by a member state in its official capacity, an unacceptable one.
AP1 (Applicant): OK.
AP1 (Applicant): The government argues that the aim of the law is to encourage a law-abiding taxpayer conduct.
AP1 (Applicant): However, making public lists is not encouraging anything.
AP1 (Applicant): It only aims deterrence.
AP1 (Applicant): Encouraging implies rewarding the law-abiding taxpayer conduct.
AP1 (Applicant): The public list uses shame to deter from having a significant amount of tax arrears, and it carries no positive feedback.
AP1 (Applicant): What is more, the personal data of the taxpayer remain accessible on the archive list, irrespective of the fact that the tax arrears became unenforceable.
AP1 (Applicant): How could this measure encourage the law-abiding taxpayer conduct?
AP1 (Applicant): If the data remains accessible forever, there is no point in trying to pay the outstanding amount.
AP1 (Applicant): The inglorious list casts the shadow on the applicant of stealing public money and being a criminal without express his whereabouts alleging it.
AP1 (Applicant): Having tax arrears is not a crime.
AP1 (Applicant): There is no list even for those sentenced for tax-related crimes.
AP1 (Applicant): If we do not list such persons, listing people merely for having tax arrears is clearly unacceptable.
AP1 (Applicant): It is even more so since making a list of individuals on the basis of such a negative criterion creates a group whose members are inferior and should be excluded from the society, or at least despised by it.
AP1 (Applicant): The government argued that the applicant cannot have a right to reputation when he, in fact, was a tax defaulter.
AP1 (Applicant): However, the negative connotations behind this term extend much further than the realm of taxation and generally paints an unjust negative picture of the applicant.
AP1 (Applicant): Moreover, making a negative list is painfully similar to the way pillory worked as a punishment and endurance centuries ago.
AP1 (Applicant): In the Middle Ages, the pillory was limited to a small community, usually a town or a village.
AP1 (Applicant): However, at the age of the internet, the effect is multiplied in a magnitude that cannot be foreseen with irreversible consequences since the internet never forgets.
AP1 (Applicant): The stigmatizing effect was multiplied by the regular republication of the list in the Hungarian media.
AP1 (Applicant): It is a well-known phenomenon in Hungary that when the renewed list is published, countless articles cover the issue immediately in a rather derogatory way.
AP1 (Applicant): These publications take place in a manner which cannot be described as contributing to a debate of public interest.
AP1 (Applicant): To the contrary, it represents a modern scarlet letter.
AP1 (Applicant): To summarize it all, the applicant's inclusion on the tax defaulters list violated his core Article 8 rights to private life, in particular, his right to the protection of dignity, reputation, and the right to protection of personal data.
AP1 (Applicant): The interference did not serve any legitimate aim, and it is not even in accordance with the law with respect to the query interface of the archive list.
AP1 (Applicant): The interference was not necessary in a democratic society, since even its minimal effectiveness was not proven by the government.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicant is of the view that in the absence of the fulfillment of the necessity requirement, the proportionality of the impugn measure cannot be established either.
AP1 (Applicant): The applicant's private data were disclosed on the internet, therefore made publicly available to anybody without any safeguard mechanism.
AP1 (Applicant): Moreover, the tax defaulters list is aimed at achieving its alleged goals through public shaming, a tool which should be unacceptable in a democratic society based on the rule of law.
AP1 (Applicant): It shall be strongly underlined in this respect that the list serves only the satisfaction of the public's thirst for sensation, while not contributing at all to any meaningful debate on the subject.
AP1 (Applicant): The disproportionality of the measure is even more striking, since the applicant's data are still available on the tax authority's website, despite the fact that his tax arrears have became unenforceable years ago.
AP1 (Applicant): For these reasons, the applicant invites the court to find a violation of Article 8 of the Convention and adjudicate just satisfaction for the injustices suffered.
Robert Spano (JudgeP): Thank you very much, Mr. Karsai.
Robert Spano (JudgeP): Mr. Tallódi, you have the floor.
GR1 (Government): ladies and gentlemen, it's a privilege and an honor to appear before the court and set out the position of the government of Hungary in this ordinary taxation case involving no such fascinating issues as a modern pillory, as suggested by the applicant.
GR1 (Government): The case concerns the publication of the fact that the applicant had a significant amount of debt in Texas and how it made the applicant feel about his actions or omissions.
GR1 (Government): Contrary to the applicant's allegations, this case is not about his intentional humiliation in the public eye and his defamation as a tax evader.
GR1 (Government): It is about the publication of the fact that he had a significant amount of debt in Texas and how it made him feel about his actions or omissions.
GR1 (Government): In order to grasp the difference between these two approaches, we must first clarify some linguistic issues, since possible only few people present in this room speak English as their native tongue, and also because the abstract notions involved lend themselves to different understandings.
GR1 (Government): It is very important to see that the list complained of by the applicant was not called the list of tax evaders.
GR1 (Government): The tax evasion is, by the definition of Merriam-Webster dictionary, a willful and especially criminal attempt to evade the imposition or payment of a tax.
GR1 (Government): Whereas the term used in Hungarian law literally translates to tax debtors, that is persons who are considered to owe outstanding amounts of tax to the tax authority.
GR1 (Government): For whatever reason, there is no implication of a willful and criminal attempt to avoid the payment of taxes.
GR1 (Government): It is a matter of fact information on the balance of one's tax account, which may be relevant for other taxpayers, the third persons in general, in the exercise of their rights and duties, as it has been explained in the government's written submissions and will also be explained later.
GR1 (Government): Second, we must clarify the meaning of the word most frequently used by the applicant in his submissions before the court, shaming.
GR1 (Government): According to the same dictionary, shame is a painful emotion caused by having done something wrong or improper.
GR1 (Government): In this sense, the measure complained of was admittedly intended to have a shaming effect in as much as it is the normal operation of the legal system, that citizens are expected to voluntarily follow the rules and at least to feel bad about their conduct, in addition to facing sanctions if they fail to abide by the law.
GR1 (Government): It could hardly be expected from any legal system or any legal provision to make rule breakers feel comfortable with having done something wrong or improper.
GR1 (Government): What the contested legislation didn't intend was to humiliate tax debtors in the public eye, as suggested by the applicant, whereas that intention of humiliation was inherent in the medieval application of pillory as an inhuman and degrading punishment.
GR1 (Government): Inclusion in the list complained of was not intended to and was not capable of lowering the applicant's public esteem.
GR1 (Government): We must recall that the relevant legislative and administrative acts used the morally and legally neutral term of tax debtors.
GR1 (Government): But even if the term of tax evaders had been used, it could not have elicited a clear public contempt.
GR1 (Government): The sociological surveys have shown that public opinion of tax evasion, that is, illegal acts aimed at avoiding the payment of taxes, is quite diverse depending on the type of conduct involved in such tax evasion.
GR1 (Government): It is mostly perceived with indifference as long as it does not cause direct harm to others, typically unregistered employees who are thereby denied social security benefits, or even with sympathy if it is deemed directly benefiting customers or employees too.
GR1 (Government): It is reasonable to assume that similarly lenient approach exists in respect of non-criminal tax debtors.
GR1 (Government): The list of new articles about tax debts of celebrities and public figures submitted by the applicant also proves that this information has no effect on one's public image.
GR1 (Government): As to the perception of the Hungarian society of further proof of the lack of such humiliating effect is that nobody has been bothered by the lists at issue since their introduction in 1996 and 2006, respectively, or their reenactment in 2017 to make them challenge the relevant legislation before the Constitutional Court, either in an actio popularis or in an individual complaint in accordance with the rules enforced at the relevant time.
GR1 (Government): The lack of such challenges also suggests that there is a strong consensus in the Hungarian society about the legitimacy and necessity of publication of the list of tax defaulters or tax debtors.
GR1 (Government): next I shall address the issue of the scope of the present case, for it has been quite a moving target in the course of the proceedings, and it has a decisive effect on the requirement of exhaustion of domestic remedies.
GR1 (Government): The applicant first complained about the republication by a news portal of the data on the actual list of tax debtors, including his name and address.
GR1 (Government): The government argued that this complaint was inadmissible for failure to exhaust available domestic remedies under the Data Protection Act.
GR1 (Government): Then the chamber decided to exclude this complaint from the scope of the case.
GR1 (Government): The applicant complained of this approach in his request for referral to the grand chamber.
GR1 (Government): However, he didn't address this issue in his written submissions before the grand chamber.
GR1 (Government): Should the court consider that this complaint still falls within the scope of the present case, the government referred to the written submissions and request the court to declare this part of the application inadmissible for failure to exhaust all effective domestic remedies.
GR1 (Government): The availability and effectiveness of this remedy was also demonstrated by examples of domestic jurisprudence.
GR1 (Government): This type of domestic remedy under the Data Protection Act is also available in cases when publication of the data is mandated by law, but the statutory conditions for publication are not fully met.
GR1 (Government): That is when the publication is not in accordance with the law.
GR1 (Government): However, the applicant didn't claim before the chamber that the tax authority had acted in breach of the provisions of the taxation law.
GR1 (Government): Therefore, this remedy was not available to him in respect of the complaint raised before the court.
GR1 (Government): Nevertheless, the applicant could also have argued in such domestic proceedings that unlawfulness included unconstitutionality, and his claim that the publication of the information about him being in debt of a significant amount of tax had no legitimate aim and was not necessary in a democratic society could have been referred to the constitutional court either by way of a court motion in the course of judicial review or as a constitutional complaint after the final judgment.
GR1 (Government): However, the government cannot prove the effectiveness of this remedy because nobody has ever challenged the provisions at issue in such proceedings.
GR1 (Government): The possibility of bringing the issues raised in the present proceedings before the Hungarian Constitutional Court exists through other channels, too, but they have never been made use of either.
GR1 (Government): In one case, a person sought compensation under the civil court for the allegedly unlawful publication of their personal data by the tax authority but didn't challenge the constitutionality of the applicable law once their confusion about the interpretation of section 55.3 and 5,
GR1 (Government): respectively, of the 2003 Tax Administration Act had been resolved.