Case T-529/24: Action brought on 15 October 2024 – Kverulant.org v Parliament
Date: 2024-10-15
Institutions: General Court
Subjects: Member of the European Parliament, access to EU information, parliamentary allowance, principle of proportionality, protection of privacy, right to information








C_202407360EN.000101.fmx.xml












Official Journal of the European Union


EN
C series













C/2024/7360


16.12.2024






Action brought on 15 October 2024 – Kverulant.org v Parliament


(Case T-529/24)

(C/2024/7360)
Language of the case: Czech

Parties


Applicant: Kverulant.org o.p.s. (Prague, Czech Republic) (represented by: D. Schmied, lawyer)

Defendant: European Parliament

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:






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annul the contested decision;










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order the European Parliament to pay the costs.





Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action, the applicant relies on two pleas in law.






1.


First plea in law, alleging infringement of the right of access to documents (Article 4(1)(b) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 (1) of the European Parliament and of the Council and Article 9(1) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 (2) of the European Parliament and of the Council) by the decision of Parliament of 14 August 2024, reference no 2023-0337C, which rejected in part the confirmatory application of the applicant for access to European Parliament documents related to Members’ allowances:










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Lack of transparency: Parliament refused to provide specific information about the expenses and activities of particular Members, thereby preventing effective control by the applicant, as a ‘watchdog on behalf of society’, of the use of public funds. The aggregated data, as was only made available to the applicant, does not constitute a source of information that enables objective and public scrutiny of the effectiveness of the use of those public funds by the Members concerned.










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Individual responsibility of Members: Members of Parliament have personal responsibility for the management of public funds. By refusing to make specific information public, Parliament hindered the effective control of their activities and expenses.










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The goal pursued necessarily requires specific information: scrutiny of the proportionality of expenditure and of the effectiveness of the activities of Members requires the obtaining of specific information, which cannot be replaced by a general overview in the form of aggregated data or by reference to the general legal framework concerning all the theoretical possibilities for the use of those public funds.










2.


Second plea in law, alleging infringement of the requirement to provide reasons laid down in Article 7(1) and Article 8(1) of Regulation No 1049/2001 and of the requirement that EU bodies provide clear and reviewable reasoning for their decisions, in accordance with Article 41 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union:










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Insufficient reasoning for the decision: Parliament failed to explain why the publication of the information could specifically breach the right to privacy of the Members. The risks referred to were general and hypothetical, which disregards the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (judgment of the General Court of 15 July 2015, Dennekamp v Parliament, T-115/13, EU:T:2015:497).










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Insufficient consideration of proportionality: Parliament failed to carry out a test of proportionality that weighs the protection of privacy against the public interest in transparency. The applicant asserts that the public interest outweighs the hypothetical risks of undermining the privacy of the Members as the data subjects concerned.






(1)  Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents (OJ 2001 L 145, p. 43).

(2)  Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 of the European Parliament of the Council of 23 October 2018, on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by the Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 and Decision No 1247/2002/EC (OJ 2018 L 295, p. 39).


ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2024/7360/oj
ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)