Article 10 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms emphasizes that everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.
The unimpeded exercise of the right to freedom of expression, receipt and dissemination of information is an important component of the functioning of a democratic society, its development and the creation of conditions for self-realization of each member of such a society.
The joint project of the EU and the Council of Europe "The European Union and the Council of Europe working together to support freedom of media in Ukraine" has published an analytical review "Legal positions of the European Court of Human Rights on cases on access to public information" (available in Ukrainian). Its author - Khrystyna Burtnyk, national Project’s consultant, expert in the field of freedom to information.
The legal positions considered in this publication illustrate the new approach of the European Court of Human Rights in cases of access to public information. The Court indicated the direction in which the practice in this area will be developed in the coming years.
The publication contains an Ukrainian translation of the key decision in the case of the “Magyar Helsinki Bizottság v. Hungary” in the field of access to public information. In its judgment, the Court summarised its case-law on access to public information and identified four criteria according to which restrictions on access to information may be assessed as interference with the exercise of freedom of expression.
The publication also provides the cases on which decisions were made after this key decision. For each of these cases, their facts summary and the legal positions of the Court in terms of threshold criteria are exposed. In other words, the publication describes how the Court assessed the specific circumstances of the case and applied the criteria mentioned above.
This analytical review will be useful for those who apply the case law of the Court in their work: judges, lawyers, human rights defenders and researchers.
The project "The European Union and the Council of Europe work together to support media freedom in Ukraine", funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe, aims to strengthen the role of the media, their freedom and safety.
