Chronology

Articles 20 and 21 of the Law for a Digital Republic, known as the Lemaire Law, promulgated on October 7, 2016, established the principle of the opening of administrative and judicial court decisions. The Open Data of court decisions must be carried out with respect for the privacy of the persons concerned and preceded by an analysis of the risk of re-identification of persons.

The implementation of these measures is addressed by the March 23, 2019 Programming and Reform Law for Justice 2018-2022, in Section III of its Chapter II, Title II, entitled "Reconciling the publicity of court decisions and the right to privacy," and more specifically in its Article 33.

In the preparation phase of the measures adopted, Loïc Cadiet, professor of law at the Sorbonne, was entrusted on May 9, 2016, with a mission on the openness of court decisions. The resulting report was submitted to the Minister of Justice on January 9, 2017. The main recommendations were as follows:

  • Strengthen existing techniques known as "pseudonymization" of decisions, in order to ensure the protection of the privacy of individuals
  • To institute a regulation of the algorithms which exploit the data resulting from the decisions
  • To define the guiding principles of open data, by entrusting the management of the databases to the Cour de cassation and the Conseil d'Etat, as well as the essential mission of "pseudonymizing" the decisions collected from the courts
  • Outline key opportunities for public dissemination of decisions

Some of these recommendations were followed by the above-mentioned law on justice programming and reform. Here are the main points.

Main principles of the law

Within the framework of the Open Data dissemination, the principle is affirmed that the judgments are made available to the public free of charge in electronic form.

In order to ensure the security of the persons and the respect of their private life, the name and surname of the natural persons who are parties or third parties to the judgment are hidden.

On the other hand, any other element allowing to identify these persons as well as magistrates and members of the registry, if there is a risk of infringement of their security and privacy, will also be concealed.

The re-use of magistrates' and clerks' identity data for the purpose of classification, evaluation, comparison or profiling is prohibited; this principle is accompanied by a criminal sanction.

Third parties may request a copy of the decision from the court clerk's office, provided that the requests are not abusive. In this case, the elements allowing to identify the parties and the third parties can be masked if there is a risk to their security and privacy.

These rules apply to both administrative and judicial justice. They respond to the will of the legislator to try to reconcile three major but often antagonistic principles: the publicity of court decisions, the protection of personal data, and Open Data.

According to the Chancellery, in a document intended for the Press, the entry into force of these measures will be effective in 2020, when the decree of application concerned will have been promulgated.