R.A. v. POLAND
Inadmissible
George Nicolaou;Ineta Ziemele;Krzysztof Wojtyczek;Nona Tsotsoria;Päivi Hirvelä;Paul Mahoney
1. The applicant, Ms R.A., is a Polish national, who was born in 1973. The President granted the applicant’s request for her identity not to be disclosed to the public (Rule 47 § 3). She is represented before the Court by Ms M. Gąsiorowska, a lawyer practising in Warszawa. The Polish Government (“the Government”) are represented by their Agent, Ms J. Chrzanowska of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 2. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows. 3. In July 2010 the applicant filed with the Warszawa-Praga Regional Court a claim for the protection of her personal rights against the company S. which publishes the newspaper “Nasz Dziennik”, its editor-in-chief E.S. and journalist M.S. She referred to an article published in this newspaper in January 2008 which, in the applicant’s submission, had breached her rights protected by Articles 23 and 24 of the Civil Code. She sought compensation in the amount of 60,000 Polish zlotys (PLN) in respect of non-pecuniary damage caused by disclosing information about her private life accompanied by denigrating and untrue statements and views about the applicant published in the newspaper in an article written by M.S. She further requested that all three defendants publish apologies, on the newspaper’s website for seven consecutive days and in a Sunday edition of a countrywide daily newspaper Gazeta wyborcza, for damage caused by describing her in a mendacious and wrongful manner (w sposób nieprawdziwy i krzywdzący). 4. By a decision of 22 July 2010 the court ordered the applicant to provide the court with the private addresses (miejsce zamieszkania) of E.S. and M.S. within seven days, referring to Article 126 para. 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure. 5. In her pleadings of 4 August 2010 the applicant submitted that it was impossible for her to establish the defendants’ private addresses and even less so within seven days. It was true that it was possible for her to ask the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the addresses of private persons, but such a request had to be accompanied by the statistical numbers (PESEL) of the persons concerned. The applicant did not know these numbers and had no way of obtaining them. She argued that in her statement of claim (pozew) she had provided the court with the newspaper’s publisher’s official address which should be sufficient for effective service of the court correspondence both on the journalist and the editor-in-chief working there. She submitted ’ private addresses amounted to an undue restriction of her right of access to court. 6. On 27 September 2010 the applicant requested the court to lift the order of 22 July 2010, referring to the Court’s judgment in the case of Nowiński v. Poland (no. 25924/06, 20 October 2009). She submitted that the domestic court’s approach was unduly formalistic as no proper regard had been had to the practicalities of the situation, in particular to the difficulties in establishing the defendants’ private addresses. She argued that it was in fact possible to ensure effective service of the court correspondence on the editor and journalist at the newspaper’s official address. 7. By a decision of 29 September 2010 the court, referring to Article 130 of the Code of Civil Procedure, returned the statement of claim to the applicant (zwrot pozwu) in so far as it concerned the editor-in-chief and the journalist. The court referred to the applicant’s failure to give their private addresses and refused to entertain her claim. The court referred to the Supreme Court’s decision given in 1989 to the effect that in the protection of personal rights cases in the context of press publications the requirements of Article 126 of the Code of Civil Procedure were to be understood as imposing on plaintiffs an obligation to submit private addresses of journalists to the court in the statement of claim (II CZ 167/89). Article 135 of the CCP providing for service of court pleadings at the employer’s address (doręczenie zastępcze) could not be applied. 8. The applicant appealed. She reiterated that she had indicated the publisher’s address in her statement of claim and that both the editor and journalist could easily be contacted at that address and the court correspondence served on them. Hence, it was possible for the court to establish an effective channel of communication with the two defendants and to ensure effective protection of their rights without the need for their private addresses being indicated to the court. 9. By a decision of 10 May 2011 the Court of Appeal dismissed the applicant’s appeal. It was of the view that the contested decision was lawful given that Article 126 para. 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure required that the private address (miejsce zamieszkania) of a defendant who was a natural person was indicated in the statement of claim and in the pleadings. The court observed that the Court’s judgment in the case of Nowiński v. Poland was irrelevant to the circumstances of the present case. The Court had found a violation of Article 6 of the Convention in respect of a situation where the court obliged the plaintiff who did not have a permanent private address to give such an address for the purposes of judicial proceedings. The present case was different in that it concerned private addresses of defendants who had permanent addresses. 10. On 28 September 2010 the applicant requested the newspaper’s publisher, S. company, to provide her with E.S.’s and M.S.’s private addresses, referring to the civil claim lodged with the WarszawaPraga Regional Court. There was no reply to this letter. 11. On 19 October 2010 the applicant submitted a request to the General Inspector for Personal Data Protection (Generalny Inspektor Ochrony Danych Osobowych) to oblige the publisher to provide her with the addresses concerned. She argued that the courts in the Warsaw region had developed an unduly restrictive practice requiring plaintiffs to give the personal addresses of defendants in all cases and had regard neither to practical difficulties in establishing these addresses, nor to the fact that in many cases, like in her case, it was in fact possible to proceed with the case as other addresses of the defendants, such as their employer’s permanent addresses, were available. Establishing effective communication between the court and the plaintiff was therefore feasible. 12. On 24 March 2011 the Inspector allowed her request. 13. The S. company appealed, submitting that the addresses were not necessary for the purposes relied on by the applicant. The applicant could find the necessary data in the press titles register run by the WarszawaPraga Regional Court. The publisher was further of the view that disclosure of the personal addresses of the journalist and the editor without their consent would have amounted to a breach of the legislation on the protection of personal data. 14. Following the publisher’s appeal, on 27 May 2011 the Inspector reexamined the case and upheld the contested decision. He noted that the lack of consent on the part of persons whose personal data were to be disclosed was not a single or decisive factor determining the lawfulness of such a disclosure. Personal data could be disclosed also when it was necessary for the protection of legally protected interests of third parties. In the present case the personal addresses of the journalists were necessary for the applicant to pursue her civil case against them. Hence, the publisher, in its capacity of administrator of its employees’ personal data, was obliged to disclose them. 15. On 20 February 2012 the Warsaw Regional Administrative Court dismissed the appeal brought to it by the publishing company, essentially reiterating the reasoning of the administrative authority. 16. On 10 April 2012 the publisher’s lawyer lodged a cassation appeal with the Supreme Administrative Court against that judgment. It was argued, inter alia, that there was no legitimate aim that would justify the disclosure of the journalist’s and editor’s addresses to the applicant, regard being had to the fact that the WarszawaPraga Regional Court had already returned the applicant’s statement of claim (see paragraph 7 above). In the absence of any pending case between the applicant on the one hand and E.S. (who had in the meantime married and her new name was E.N. – K.) and M.C. on the other, the disclosure would not serve any practical purpose. 17. On 5 December 2013 the Supreme Administrative Court dismissed the publisher’s appeal. It shared the reasoning and conclusions reached by the administrative authority and by the first-instance court. 18. On 25 July 2012 the Warszawa-Praga Regional Court allowed the applicant’s claim in so far as it was directed against the publisher company. It ordered it to publish apologies in their newspaper, for seven consecutive days, for having breached her personal rights by disclosing and publishing details of her personal life and describing them in a mendacious and wrongful manner (w sposób nieprawdziwy i krzywdzacy). It further ordered that the article should be removed from the newspaper’s website within 14 days from the judgment becoming final. The applicant was awarded compensation in the amount of PLN 30,000. Article 25 of the Civil Code of 23 April 1964 provides: “The personal address of a natural person shall be the town where that person resides with the intention of remaining permanently.” 19. Article 126 of the Code of Civil Procedure specifies the information that pleadings in civil cases should contain. Paragraph 2 provides, in particular, that the first pleading submitted to a court in a case directed against a natural person should indicate the parties’ personal addresses.