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29 AVRIL 2016 C.15.0052.F/38 Condamne le demandeur aux dépens. Les dépens taxés à la somme de neuf cent douze euros quatorze centimes envers la partie demanderesse. Ainsi jugé par la Cour de cassation, première chambre, à Bruxelles, où siégeaient le président de section Christian Storck, le conseiller Didier Batselé, le président de section Martine Regout, les conseillers Mireille Delange et Michel Lemal, et prononcé en audience publique du vingt-neuf avril deux mille seize par le président de section Christian Storck, en présence du premier avocat général André Henkes, avec l’assistance du greffier Patricia De Wadripont. P. De Wadripont M. Lemal M. Delange M. Regout D. Batselé Chr. Storck

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P.H. v. O.G.

Case Law

Country

Belgium

Country Location

Latitude: 50.855421148205785

Longitude: 4.557127118111282

Country Location (linked Case Law): Belgium

Decision Date: Apr 29, 2016

Case Status: Closed

Case Outcome (Procedural)

Affirmed Lower Court

Case Outcome (Disposition)

Judgment in Favor of Defendant/ Acquittal

Keywords

Anonymity
Archives
Data Protection and Retention
Privacy
Right to be Forgotten
Search Engines

Judicial Body: Supreme Court (court of final appeal)

Court Name: Belgian Court of Cassation

Case Number: N° C.15.0052.F

Case Summary: The Belgian Court of Cassation ruled that the right to respect for private life included the “right to be forgotten”, and it upheld an obligation on a newspaper to anonymize the name of a person in the digital version of an article from 1994. The case concerned a doctor who had been convicted for his involvement in a fatal car accident in 1994. Around the time of the accident, an article was published about him in the newspaper Le Soir. In 2008, the newspaper created a public online archive of all of its articles since 1989. This made it possible for anyone to find the 1994 article by searching the doctor’s full name on Google or the website of Le Soir. The Belgian Court of Cassation upheld lower instance decisions that ruled that anonymization of the digital version of the article struck a fair balance between the right to freedom of expression and the right to respect for private life. The Court of Cassation reasoned that the archiving of the article amounted to a new publication of the story, which could cause disproportionate harm to the doctor’s reputation.

Case Significance: This decision has a mixed outcome for freedom of expression. On the one hand, the Belgian Court of Cassation (Court) recognized that the online archiving of older articles was protected as an aspect of the right to freedom of expression. On the other hand, the Court required that a newspaper anonymize the name of an individual in a story that had been legally printed almost twenty years before. This could have a detrimental impact on newspapers’ ability to keep digital records of their articles. It could also have a chilling effect on the reporting of current affairs, as newspapers may choose to anonymize information when it is initially published to prevent potential lawsuits in the future. Nonetheless, the Court reached a decision on the “right to be forgotten” that did not result in the de-indexing of an entire news story (making it more difficult for users to find it). Instead, a less drastic measure (i.e. anonymization) was imposed by the Court. Therefore, this decision could be viewed as a less disproportionate restriction on the right to freedom of expression when compared to other “right to be forgotten” cases.

The decision establishes a binding or persuasive precedent within its jurisdiction. The decisions of the Court of Cassation are not binding on lower courts, but still offer persuasive authority.

Related Caselaw (self)

Google Spain SL v. Agencia Española de Protección de Datos

Source URL: Global Freedom of Expression

Collection

Columbia

Date Updated: Jul 3, 2024

Primary Documents

Decision (French)
French
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CYRILLA: Global Digital Rights Law

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P.H. v. O.G.

Primary Documents

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