Belgian court ruled on “right-to-be-forgotten”

3. June 2016

The Belgian Court of Cassation confirmed the broad interpretation of the “right-to-be-forgotten” by a Belgian Court of Appeal.

The case was initiated by a person who fought against a Belgian newspaper because it did not comply with a request to remove an article from 1994 from its online archives regarding a car accident causing the death of two persons in which the individual was involved.

The Court of Appeal ruled that disclosing the name of the individum in the article was not in public interest and that is why it was damaging the reputation of the relevant individual. Therefore, it ordered the newspaper to anonymize the online version of the article.

However, the newspaper contested the Court of Appeal’s judgment and brought the case before the Belgian Court of Cassation.

The Court of Cassation decided that the publication of articles in newspapers’ online archives can be considered as a new disclosure of facts of an individual’s judicial past, which could potentially infringe the individual’s right-to-be-forgotten. Furthermore, the Court of Cassation confirmed that the online publication of the non-anonymized article years after the accident could have caused damages to the individual’s reputation. Therefore, the Court of Cassation decided that the right to privacy of the relevant individual could justify an interference with the newspaper’s right to freedom of expression and that in this case the newspaper has to remove all references to the individual from the article in its online archives.