The abstract of the judgment (The judgment is available only in Georgian). Abstracts published by the Constitutional Court of Georgia summarise the facts of the case and key legal considerations of the judgment.

Abstract

On 9 February 2017, the First Chamber of the Constitutional Court of Georgia adopted the Judgement in the case of “Citizen of Georgia Edisher Goduadze v. The Minister of Internal Affairs of Georgia” (constitutional complaint №622).

The subject of dispute in this case was the constitutionality with regard to Article 16 and Article 20(1) of the Constitution of Georgia of Article 15(1) of the Order №271 of the Minister of Internal Affairs of Georgia of 1 March, 2006 on Approval of Instruction on Uniform Registration of Administrative Offences, Operation of Information Bank and Registration-Analytical Activities in the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

In view of the complainant, the rule stated in the disputed provision, which provides for permanent storage of electronic entries in the uniform information bank of administrative offences is incompatible with the right to free development of personality. According to the arguments of the complainant, blanket nature of a rule, as well as the fact, that it does not provide for judicial oversight, are the reasons due to which the challenged rule does not meet the constitutional safeguards applicable in case of restriction right to privacy.

At the oral hearing on merits, the representative of respondent pointed out, that the disputed rule is important not only with regard to a specific offence - for adequate response in case of its repeated commission, but it also serves common public good – generalization of available data, identification of possible risks and dangers and detection of the main trends of illegal activities, on which the state should base its response strategy. Moreover, in the process of reviewing its constitutionality, the strictly restricted nature of access to the protected information should be taken into account.

The Constitutional Court drew the distinction in the first place between the components of the rights to privacy protected in Article 20 and Article 16 of the Constitution and pointed out, that the scope of Article 20(1) of the Constitution aims at content-based protection of the specific components enlisted in this Article. The general term of “private life” mentioned there only serves extension of this constitutional rule to new cases, which by their nature fall within the scope of this rule. This constitutional provision protects the private sphere of an individual and prohibits penetration in this sphere and obtaining of information about the person without due constitutional grounds. The Court noted, that the disputed rule only regulates storage of information, not its obtaining. Therefore the disputed rule did not interfere within the scope of Article 20 of the Constitution and its constitutionality was reviewed with regard to Article 16 of the Constitution.

The Constitutional Court explained, that any action, which qualifies as administrative offence contains certain public danger for the future. To address these dangers there might be a logical need for registration of information for protection of legal order and public safety in the rule of law state. At the same time, while achieving the above-mentioned legitimate aims, the State is obliged to meet the requirements of the principle of proportionality.

The Court ruled, that permanence of storage of information about administrative offences provided by the disputed provision, does not constitute the necessary and therefore, proportional means of achieving the named legitimate aim. Pursuant to the disputed regulation, the state stored information about persons even in case, when there was no need for it, for enforcement of administrative sanction and/or for application of a different sanction to the offender in case of repeated commission of an offence by a person, who has already been imposed an administrative sanction. In such case, storage of the data only leads to the danger of its distribution or its abuse in any other manner and the named legitimate aim can be achieved through employing a less intense means.

The Constitutional Court also indicated, that the regulation provided in the disputed provision has a blanket nature and does not take into account intensity and nature of a committed administrative offence in the process of storage of information about administrative offences, which also highlights the disproportional restriction of the right to free development of personality.

In view of all the abovementioned, the Constitutional Court of Georgia upheld the constitutional complaint №622 and the disputed provision was declared unconstitutional with regard to Article 16 of the Constitution of Georgia.