The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has set aside a judgment of the General Court of the EU (T-185/19) of July 2021, which had upheld the European Commission’s refusal to grant access to harmonised technical standards on toy safety, in a judgment handed down on Tuesday 5 March (Case C-588/21 P).
Two non-profit organisations whose focus is to make the law freely accessible to all citizens, Public.Resource.Org and Right to Know, are challenging the Commission’s refusal to grant them access to technical standards harmonised at EU level concerning the safety of toys, more specifically related to chemistry games and sets.
On appeal, the Court recalls that Regulation (EC) No 1049/2011 guarantees any natural or legal person residing in an EU Member State, access to documents, including those held by the Commission. Access to a document may however be refused where its disclosure would undermine the protection of the commercial interests of a natural or legal person, including intellectual property, unless there is an overriding public interest in disclosure.
In this case, the European Court found that there is an overriding public interest in disclosure of the harmonised standards in question. It considered that the possibility for citizens to acquaint themselves with those standards may be necessary in order to enable them to verify whether a given product or service actually complies with the requirements of such legislation.
See the Court's judgment: https://aeur.eu/f/b4x (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)