Protection of Personal Data in Court Judgements
Legal Notice 456 of 2021, referred to also as the “Online Publication of Court Judgments (Data Protection) Conferment of Functions Regulations, 2021” was implemented into the Code of Organization and Civil Procedure (Cap. 12) earlier in 2021. The importance of the legal notice lies in the protection of personal data when one’s judgment is published online.
With regards to interpretation, any reference to the Director General (Courts) needs to include a reference to the Chief Executive Officer of the Court Services Agency as authorised to carry out the legal function of the Director General (Courts) in compliance with article 3(i) and 6 of the Court Services (Establishment as an Agency) Order.
In order to be in a full compliance with the Data Protection Act, the Director General (Courts) shall have the function and the power to assess if one person has good reasons to exercise his right of erasure of personal data with respect to the content of a court judgement published online on the website of the Court Services Agency.
The right of erasure of personal data, which forms part of a court judgment published on the website of the Court Services Agency, entitles its holder to have either the judgement or any part thereof anonymised or the judgment removed from the said website. The Director General (Courts) has the full power to determine if the application for the exercise of right of erasure of personal data can be actually exercised.
Author: Stephanie Marinova
