The Conflicting Relationship of Open Justice with the GDPR

This chapter provides an analysis of the thorny relationship between the principle of open justice, and privacy and data protection laws. It points out that the judiciary does not escape the application of the General Regulation on Personal Data (GDPR), even if some specific derogations were enacted so as to take into consideration the particularity of the judiciary’s mission and its independence. Nevertheless, compliance with the privacy data regulation does not mean that the GDPR opposes the necessary transparency of the administration of justice absolutely, and consequently a compromise with the principle of open justice has to be found. The chapter, therefore, presents mechanisms allowing this compromise, with an emphasis on the techniques of anonymization and pseudonymization of judgments during their publication. Furthermore, the digitalization of justice also raises the issues of the protection of image rights and the right to be forgotten.