Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. Acts of the institutions - Statement of reasons - Obligation - Scope - Decision refusing public access to an institution's documents

(EC Treaty, Art. 190 (now Art. 253 EC); Council Decision 93/731, Art. 4(1))

2. Acts of the institutions - Statement of reasons - Obligation - Scope - Decision confirming an initial decision

(EC Treaty, Art. 190 (now Art. 253 EC))

3. Council - Right of public access to Council documents - Decision 93/731 - Exceptions to the principle of access to documents - Protection of the public interest - Obligation to grant access to information not covered by the exception - Scope

(Council Decision 93/731, Art. 4(1))

Summary

1. The duty to give reasons for a decision, resulting from Article 190 of the Treaty (now Article 253 EC), has two purposes: to allow interested parties to know the justification for the measure so as to enable them to protect their rights and to enable the Community judicature to exercise its power to review the legality of the decision. Whether a statement of reasons satisfies those requirements is a question to be assessed with reference not only to its wording but also to its context and the whole body of legal rules governing the matter in question.

When an application is made for access to Council documents, the Council is obliged to consider, in the case of each document to which access is sought, whether, in the light of the information available to the Council, disclosure is in fact likely to undermine one of the facets of public interest protected by Article 4(1) of Decision 93/731 on public access to Council documents.

A decision in which the Council confined itself to indicating that certain documents contained sensitive information disclosure of which to the public would damage the European Union's relations with the countries concerned does not satisfy the above requirements and must be annulled. First, it is not clear from the statement of reasons for that decision that the Council had examined each of the documents individually, however briefly, or even in groups having the same essential features. Second, in respect of certain other documents, no reasons were put forward which would have enable the applicant to understand why there was a risk that disclosure might have a detrimental impact on the EU's relations with third countries.

( see paras 36-37, 41-42, 48 )

2. Where an institution rejects an application for access to documents, giving reasons, and the applicant submits a confirmatory application with a view to having that rejection reconsidered and it is rejected on the same grounds as before, it is appropriate to consider the sufficiency of the reasons in the light of all the exchanges between the institution and the applicant, taking into account also the information that the applicant had available. Whilst the context in which a decision is adopted may make the requirements to be satisfied by the institution as regards the statement of reasons lighter, it may, conversely, also make them more stringent in certain circumstances. That is the case where, during the procedure in which application is made for access to documents, the applicant puts forward factors capable of casting doubt on whether the first refusal was well founded. In those circumstances, the requirements governing the statement of reasons mean that the institution is obliged, when replying to a confirmatory application, to state why those factors are not such as might warrant a change in its position. Otherwise, the applicant would not be able to understand the reasons for which the author of the reply to the confirmatory application has decided to confirm the refusal on the same grounds.

( see paras 44-46 )

3. The exception concerning the protection of the public interest provided for in Article 4(1) of Decision 93/731 on public access to Council documents must be interpreted in the light of the principle of the right to information and the principle of proportionality. It follows that the Council is obliged to examine whether partial access should be granted to the information not covered by the exceptions. Moreover, the principle of proportionality would allow the Council, in particular cases where the size of the document or the passages to be removed would give rise to an unreasonable amount of administrative work, to balance the interest in public access to those fragmentary parts against the burden of work so caused. The Council could thus, in those particular cases, safeguard the interests of good administration.

( see paras 54-55 )