Categories
Jurisprudence

ACELG scholar comments on recent access to documents case (Breyer v Commission)

330px-1475-ri-112-Patrick_Breyer_PiratenOn 27 February, the General Court of the EU delivered another ruling on the EU right of public access to documents. In case T-118/12 (Breyer v Commission), German Pirate Party member Patrick Breyer (pictured) took action against the Commission’s decision not to grant it access to documents, saying that these documents, being held by the Court, fell outside of the scope of the access law. While the Court ended up ruling otherwise, ACELG PhD Eljalill Tauschinsky points at an element of the case that is problematic nonetheless: the Court’s decision to make Breyer bear half of his own costs, to punish him for publishing documents pertaining to the court case on his website, thereby allegedly inviting readers to comment negatively and exert pressure on the Commission in an ongoing case. While a comparable situation occurred over 15 years ago in the Swedish Journalist Association case, Tauschinsky argues that Breyer was punished worse for a comparable breach.

The comment, posted on the ACELG blog, can be accessed here.

Categories
Jurisprudence

Processstukken inzake inbreukprocedures Commissie niet zonder meer uitgesloten van publieke toegang

Cross-post van het Expertisecentrum voor Europees Recht (ECER), Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken.

 

De Commissie mag een verzoek om openbaarmaking van de processtukken van een lidstaat in een infractieprocedure niet automatisch afwijzen omdat het stukken van het EU-Hof zijn. Het besluit om stukken vrij te geven moet worden genomen op basis van de bijzondere regeling in de Eurowob. Dat heeft het EU-Gerecht bepaald.

Het gaat om het arrest van het Gerecht van 27 februari 2015 in de zaak T-188/12, Patrick Breyer tegen de Commissie.

Breyer verzocht de Commissie om vrijgave van de door Oostenrijk bij het EU-Hof ingediende processtukken (memories) in de infractieprocedure die de Commissie tegen Oostenrijk had gevoerd over de implementatie van de dataretentierichtlijn ( zaak C-189/09).

Voor een uitgebreide bespreking van dit arrest zie de ECER-website. -MH

 

 

Categories
Research

Transparency research activities

On March 10 and 11, L’Institut du Monde et du Développement pour la Bonne Gouvernance Publique (IMODEV) at the Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, organizes an international symposium on government transparency. The conference, entitled “Freedom of Information, and Governmental Transparency, in the Open Government Era” aims to bring both social scientists and lawyers from across the Atlantic together to discuss the state of the art in the area of government transparency. More information can be found on the IMODEV website.

In Spain, Miguel Ángel Blanes recently defended a dissertation on access to information in the field of law. It has now been published by Thomson-Reuters/Arandi, under the title “La transparencia informativa de las Administraciones públicas”. More information can be found here. Dr. Blanes works for the Ombudsman of the region of Valencia.

Categories
Research

Presentations on Council democracy & transparency

Early March sees two presentations on the interactions between transparency, democracy, and governance in the Council of the EU, in Lausanne and Brussels.

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On Wednesday 4 March, Open Government in the EU team member Maarten Hillebrandt will give a presentation at the University of Lausanne with the title “Babylonian speech confusion? Transparency’s Role in EU Council Democracy”. The presentation will take place in the context of the spring seminar series “Politique Suisse – enjeux et dilemmes”, convened by the Laboratoire d’analyse de la gouvernance et de l’action publique en Europe (LAGAPE), where Maarten is currently a visiting researcher. See here for more information.

On Thursday 5 March, dr. Stéphanie Novak (Université Catholique de Lille/EHESS Paris) will present work on the relation between transparency and decisional efficiency at the ESPOL Lille/ULB Brussels conference on “The quality of democracy within institutions and organisations”. Click on the flyer for more information.