Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. Council - Right of public access to Council documents - Decision 93/731 - Exceptions to the principle of access to documents - Protection of the public interest - Decisions refusing access taken by the Council on the basis of its political responsibilities - Judicial review - Scope - Limits

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

2. Council - Right of public access to Council documents - Decision 93/731 - Exceptions to the principle of access to documents - Protection of the public interest - Scope

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

3. Council - Right of public access to Council documents - Decision 93/731 - Exceptions to the principle of access to documents - Partial access to data not covered by the exceptions - Limits

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

Summary

1. When the Council decides whether the release of a document may undermine the public interest safeguarded by Article 4(1) of Decision 93/731 on public access to Council documents, it exercises a discretion which is among the political responsibilities conferred on it by provisions of the Treaties. In those circumstances, review by the Court of First Instance must be limited to verifying whether the procedural rules have been complied with, the decision at issue is properly reasoned and the facts have been accurately stated, and whether there has been a manifest error of assessment of the facts or a misuse of powers.

( see para. 53 )

2. The legal rule is that the public is to have access to the documents of the institutions and the power to refuse access is the exception. A decision denying access is valid only if it is based on one of the exceptions provided for in Article 4 of Decision 93/731 on public access to Council documents. These exceptions must be construed and applied restrictively so as not to defeat the general principle enshrined in that decision. In that regard, the Council is obliged to consider in respect of each document requested whether, in the light of the information available to it, disclosure is in fact likely to undermine one of the public interests protected by the exceptions provided for in Article 4(1) of Decision 93/731. If those exceptions are to apply, the risk of the public interest being undermined must therefore be reasonably foreseeable and not purely hypothetical.

In such circumstances, the mere fact that certain documents contain information or negative statements about the political situation, or the protection of human rights, in a third country does not necessarily mean that access to them may be denied on the basis that there is a risk that the public interest may be undermined and is not, in itself and in the abstract, a sufficient basis for refusing a request for access. Rather, refusal of access to the documents in question must be founded on an analysis of factors specific to the contents or the context of each document, from which it can be concluded that, because of certain specific circumstances, disclosure of such a document would pose a danger to a particular public interest.

( see paras 55-56, 60-61 )

3. The exceptions 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. Consequently, the Council must consider whether it is appropriate to grant partial access, confined to material which is not covered by the exceptions. In exceptional cases, a derogation from the obligation to grant partial access might be permissible where the administrative burden of blanking out the parts that may not be disclosed proves to be particularly heavy, thereby exceeding the limits of what may reasonably be required.

( see para. 57 )