Case Number

HCJ 5870/14

Date Decided

11-12-2015

Decision Type

Original

Document Type

Full Opinion

Abstract

[This abstract is not part of the Court's opinion and is provided for the reader's convenience. It has been translated from a Hebrew version prepared by Nevo Press Ltd. and is used with its kind permission.]

This case concerned a petition challenging the decision of the Courts Administration (the Respondent) making access to its judgment database contingent upon signing a “guarantee” that comprised, inter alia, a prohibition upon indexing the information in a manner that would allow it to be found through web search engines such as Google and Bing. The Petitioner is a commercial company whose primary activity is the operation of two internet sites (Takdin and Takdin Light) that provide information to the public for a fee, and through which the judgments and decisions of the various courts, which are “drawn” from the Respondent’s judgment database, can be accessed.

The High Court of Justice (per Deputy President E. Rubinstein, Justices E. Hayut and U. Vogelman concurring) granted the petition for the following reasons:

In terms of authority, it was noted that administrative decisions that violate basic rights are required to meet the conditions of the Limitations Clause, the first of which is authority by virtue of primary legislation. In the present case, it was held that the practical import of the Respondent’s decision results in a violation of freedom of occupation, the principle of open justice, and freedom of expression. As noted, such violations must be authorized by primary legislation, but no such authorization was presented. In this regard, the Court held that the Respondent’s agreement to sign the guarantee is irrelevant to the question of authority. The requirement of authority is not dispositive. The HCJ also noted the difficulty in recognizing the Protection of Privacy Law as a source of authority for the Respondent’s decision.

Although unnecessary for deciding the issue, the HCJ went on to examine the decision on two additional levels – the decision process and the underlying discretion.

The Petitioner’s arguments were rejected in regard to three aspects of the administrative process: the hearing, the reasons given, and the Respondent’s decision not to disclose the opinion of the Ministry of Justice’s Information and Technology Authority that served as the basis for its policy on indexing judgments.

On the other hand, the Court held that the Respondent’s exercise of discretion in making its decision was flawed. In this regard, it was noted that only a substantial deviation from the scope of reasonableness would result in the Court’s intervention in the balance struck in an administrative agency’s decision. In the present case, the required balance was between the right to privacy of litigants and the principle of open justice and the Petitioner’s freedom of occupation. The test for examining the benefit deriving from the Respondent’s concrete decision (prohibiting indexing judgments by entities granted direct access to its judgment database) in regard to the protection of privacy as opposed to the violation of freedom of occupation is that of the appropriate means. Performing that examination in accordance with the three proportionality tests established by the case law led the Court to the conclusion that the Respondent’s decision was unreasonable under each of the tests.

The Court was of the opinion that the means adopted by the Respondent did not appear to achieve the desired result – preventing the violation of the privacy of litigants caused by making their judgments searchable through web search engines – or at least, only partially and insufficiently achieved that goal, inasmuch as the decision did not effectively restrict indexing of the judgments by third parties that post them to their sites. In regard to the least harmful means, the Court was of the opinion that there were alternatives that could achieve similar, if not better results without violating the Petitioner’s freedom of occupation and the principle of open justice. As for proportionality, the Court was of the opinion that the benefit of the decision did not justify its cost. The benefit to litigants, if any, that derived from the decision was minor, while the harm to open justice, and primarily to freedom of occupation, was significant. It is difficult to permit a decision that yields such a situation to stand, with all due sympathy for the proper intentions.

In view of the above, the Court voided the Respondent’s decision, such that the Petitioner would continue to enjoy direct access to the judgment database without undertaking to make its websites unsearchable by web search engines.

Keywords

Administrative Law -- Competent authority, Constitutional Law -- Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation, Constitutional Law -- Right to Privacy, Courts

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