CEDH · CASELAW;JUDGMENTS;CHAMBER;ENG — 28 avril 2026

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Does not bind the Court.   STRASBOURG 28 April 2026   This judgment will become final in the circumstances set out in Article 44 § 2 of the Convention. It may be subject to editorial revision.   TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION THE FACTS I.   BACKGROUND II.   JUNE 2021 REQUEST MADE TO THE AGENCY A.   The request for information and the Agency’s response to it B.   Judicial review of the Agency’s refusal to disclose the information 1.   Proceedings before the Sofia City Administrative Court (a)   Course of the proceedings (b)   Judgment of the Sofia City Administrative Court 2.   Appeal proceedings before the Supreme Administrative Court (a)   Course of the proceedings (b)   Judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court III.   REQUEST TO THE NATIONAL BUREAU IV.   JUDICIAL REVIEW OF THE AGENCY’S OFFICIAL-SECRETS RULE V.   JUNE 2023 REQUEST TO THE AGENCY A.   The request and the Agency’s response to it B.   Judicial review of the Agency’s refusal to disclose the information 1.   Proceedings before the Sofia City Administrative Court 2.   Appeal proceedings before the Supreme Administrative Court C.   Renewed proceedings before the Agency VI.   INFORMATION REQUEST BY THE GOVERNMENT AGENT RELEVANT LEGAL FRAMEWORK AND PRACTICE I.   BULGARIAN DOMESTIC LAW AND PRACTICE A.   State Agency for National Security Act 2007 1.   The Agency, its tasks and powers 2.   Informers recruited by the Agency 3.   Personal data processed by the Agency (a)   Access to personal data processed by the Agency (i)   Relevant statutory provisions and regulations (ii)   Case-law of the Bulgarian courts under those provisions (α)   2012 case (β)   2014-18 case (γ)   2021-22 case (b)   Supervision of the processing of personal data by the Agency 4.   General supervision of the Agency’s work (a)   By Parliament (b)   By the Government (c)   By the President of the Republic B.   Special Surveillance Means Act 1997 C.   Protection of Personal Data Act 2002 1.   Scope of application (a)   Ratione personae (b)   Application to processing for national security purposes 2.   Right to access personal data and restrictions on that right (a)   In relation to processing falling within the scope of the GDPR (b)   In relation to processing by the authorities for law-enforcement purposes 3.   Supervisory authority 4.   Remedies (a)   In respect of processing falling within the scope of the GDPR (b)   In respect of processing undertaken by the authorities for law-enforcement purposes D.   Protection of Classified Information Act 2002 1.   Types of classified information 2.   Time‑limits for protecting classified information 3.   Access to classified information by lawyers and litigants (a)   Relevant provisions of the Act (b)   Case-law and practice of the administrative courts under sections   39(3)(3) and 39a of the Protection of Classified Information Act 2002 E.   Management and Functioning of the System for Safeguarding National Security Act 2015 II.   EUROPEAN UNION (EU) LAW A.   Treaty on European Union B.   Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union C.   Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union D.   General Data Protection Regulation 1.   Scope of application ratione materiae 2.   Right to access personal data 3.   Restrictions to the right of access 4.   Supervisory authority 5.   Remedies E.   Law Enforcement Directive 1.   Scope of application ratione materiae 2.   Right to access personal data 3.   Restrictions on the right of access 4.   Indirect exercise of the right of access 5.   Supervisory authority 6.   Remedies III.   COUNCIL OF EUROPE INSTRUMENTS A.   Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data B.   Additional Protocol to the 1981 Convention C.   Modernised Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to the Processing of Personal Data 1.   Duty to give effect 2.   Right of access and exceptions to that right 3.   Obligation to demonstrate compliance 4.   Powers of the supervisory authorities 5.   Remedies 6.   Application of the amending Protocol on a provisional basis IV.   OTHER RELEVANT INTERNATIONAL MATERIAL A.   Relevant Reports 1.   Report by the Venice Commission 2.   Reports by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights B.   Relevant Decision of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe THE LAW I.   ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 8 OF THE CONVENTION A.   Admissibility 1.   Compatibility ratione materiae (a)   The parties’ submissions (b)   The Court’s assessment 2.   Exhaustion of domestic remedies (a)   The parties’ submissions (b)   The Court’s assessment (i)   First branch of the non-exhaustion objection (ii)   Second branch of the non-exhaustion objection (iii)   Third branch of the non-exhaustion objection (iv)   Conclusion 3.   The Court’s conclusion on the admissibility of the complaint B.   Merits 1.   Existence of an interference with rights protected under Article 8 of the Convention (a)   The parties’ submissions (b)   The Court’s assessment 2.   Justification for the interference (a)   The parties’ submissions (b)   The Court’s assessment (i)   Was the interference “in accordance with the law”? (α)   General principles (β)   Application of those principles ‒   Judicial review of the Agency’s refusal to disclose whether it was processing data relating to the applicants ‒   Supervision by the Commission for the Protection of Personal Data ‒   Supervision by the National Bureau ‒   Supervision by a special parliamentary committee and the Parliament as a whole ‒   Supervision by the government and the President of the Republic ‒   Conclusion (ii)   Purpose and necessity of the interference (iii)   Final conclusion II.   ALLEGED PROCESSING OF DATA ABOUT THE APPLICANTS’ POLITICAL OPINIONS, AFFILIATIONS AND ACTIVITIES A.   The parties’ submissions B.   The Court’s assessment III.   ALLEGED BREACH OF THE RIGHT TO RECEIVE INFORMATION A.   The parties’ submissions 1.   The Government 2.   The applicants B.   The Court’s assessment IV.   ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 13 OF THE CONVENTION A.   The parties’ submissions B.   The Court’s assessment V.   APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 41 OF THE CONVENTION A.   Damage 1.   The applicants’ claim and the Government’s comments on it 2.   The Court’s assessment B.   Costs and expenses 1.   The applicants’ claim and the Government’s comments on it (a)   The claim and the documents produced in support of it (b)   The Government’s comments 2.   The Court’s assessment (a)   Postage (b)   Domestic costs (c)   Lawyers’ fees (d)   Recapitulation OPERATIVE PROVISIONS JOINT DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGES PAVLI AND NÍ RAIFEARTAIGH   In the case of Kanev and Bulgarian Helsinki Committee v. Bulgaria, The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting as a Chamber composed of:   Ioannis Ktistakis, President ,   Peeter Roosma,   Darian Pavli,   Úna Ní Raifeartaigh,   Mateja Đurović,   Vasilka Sancin, judges ,   Mira Raycheva, ad hoc judge , and Milan Blaško, Section Registrar , Having regard to: the application (no. 45864/22) against the Republic of Bulgaria lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by a Bulgarian national, Mr Krasimir Ivanov Kanev, and an association having its registered office in Bulgaria, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (“the   applicants”), on 19 September 2022; the decision to give the Bulgarian Government (“the Government”) notice of the application; the parties’ observations; the decision of the special committee composed within the Fifth Section of the Court to consider the Government’s request under Rule 44F § 2 of the Rules of Court in relation to a classified document produced by them; the decision of the President of the Section to exempt Diana Kovatcheva, the judge elected in respect of Bulgaria, from sitting in this case and his ensuing decision to appoint Mira Raycheva to sit as ad hoc judge in the case;   and the decision by a Chamber of the Section to reject the applicants’ request for the recusal of Mira Raycheva, the ad hoc judge appointed in the case; Having deliberated in private on 27 January and 17 March 2026, Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on the last ‑ mentioned date: INTRODUCTION 1 .     Following official revelations of wide-ranging covert surveillance of politicians and civil-society activists carried out by, among other authorities, Bulgaria’s State Agency for National Security (“the Agency”) in 2020-21, the two applicants – respectively, a well-known association for the defence of human rights and its chairperson – asked the Agency whether it had gathered intelligence on them and recruited any of the association’s members or staff as informers. The Agency refused to disclose such information and the administrative courts upheld its decision. 2 .     The main issue in the case is whether that refusal – seen against the background of allegedly well-founded suspicions that the Agency was abusing its broad surveillance powers, and the alleged absence of effective supervision of how it processes data acquired as a result of its operations –was in breach of Article 8 of the Convention. THE FACTS 3.     The first applicant, Mr Kanev, was born in 1958 and lives in Sofia. The second applicant, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (“the Committee”), is an association founded in 1992 with a registered office in Sofia. At the relevant time, Mr Kanev was the Committee’s chairperson. Both applicants were represented by Ms   A.   Kachaunova, a lawyer practising in Sofia. 4.     The Government were represented by their Agent, Ms I. Stancheva-Chinova of the Ministry of Justice. I.         BACKGROUND 5 .     In mid-2021 the then caretaker Minister of Internal Affairs – who had in 2013-18 been head of the National Bureau for the Oversight of Special Means of Surveillance (“the National Bureau”; for details about that body, see Ekimdzhiev and Others v. Bulgaria , no. 70078/12, §§ 14-16 and   108-24, 11   January 2022) – stated publicly that several authorities, including the Agency, had been covertly intercepting “nearly round the clock” the communications of many people, including politicians and civil-society activists, who had taken part in a prolonged series of protests against the previous government and the Chief Prosecutor held in the second half of   2020 and early 2021. Although the Minister said that he was aware of the names of the people who had been targeted by that surveillance, he did not reveal them, except for that of the new caretaker Prime Minister. II.       JUNE 2021 REQUEST MADE TO THE AGENCY A.    The request for information and the Agency’s response to it 6 .     Referring to the revelations outlined in paragraph 5 above, in June   2021 Mr   Kanev sent the Agency a letter requesting information on: ( a )     whether it had used “special means of surveillance” (for the definition of that term in Bulgarian law, see   Ekimdzhiev and Others , cited above, §   11) with respect to him personally, or to members or staff of the Committee, or to lawyers acting on its behalf; and ( b )     whether intelligence-gathering methods or techniques had been used with respect to the Committee or any of its members or staff, and whether any of the Committee’s members or staff had been recruited as informers over the previous ten years or earlier. 7 .     In late June 2021 the Agency replied that in so far as the request concerned “special means of surveillance”, that part of the request was to be addressed to the National Bureau. The amount of information about the use of such means and the way in which it could be obtained had been laid down in section 34g of the Special Surveillance Means Act 1997 (“the 1997 Act”   – see   Ekimdzhiev and Others , cited above, § 130; see also paragraph   82   (e) below). In so far as the request concerned other intelligence-gathering methods or techniques and the recruitment of informers, it touched on the existence (or otherwise) of data in the Agency’s databases, access to which was governed by section 36(4) of the State Agency for National Security   Act 2007 (“the 2007 Act”) and regulations issued by the head of the Agency in 2009 (see paragraphs 67-72 below). The request fell short of the requirements of those regulations, according to which such a request (a) was to be lodged at the Agency’s premises, and (b) contain precise information about the identity of the person lodging it. 8 .     In an amended request lodged with the Agency at the end of June   2021, Mr Kanev asked whether its databases contained information on (a) whether intelligence-gathering methods or techniques had been used with respect to him or the Committee, which he represented, and (b) whether any members or staff of the Committee had been recruited as Agency informers throughout the previous ten years or earlier. He referred to section 36(4) of the 2007   Act (see   paragraph 67 below). 9 .     In mid-July 2021 the Agency replied that it refused to disclose such information, citing section 36(7) of the 2007 Act and the corresponding regulation (see paragraphs 69-70 below). 10 .     The Agency stated that it gathered intelligence by using specific methods and techniques, but also by “special means of surveillance” and through private persons collaborating with it. Information about all of those practices was classified. The techniques that it used to gather intelligence were set out in government regulations, and those were likewise classified. All responses to queries regarding information stored in its databases were classified as well. The only means of obtaining information about the use of “special means of surveillance” was set out in section 34g of the 1997 Act, and such requests were to be addressed to the National Bureau (see paragraphs   5 and 7 above, and paragraph 82 (e) below). 11 .     So far as the request concerned information about members and staff of the Committee, the 2007 Act barred the Agency from disclosing information about other people, unless those people had authorised the person seeking the information to do so on their behalf. Moreover, by section   23(3) of that Act the identities, personal data and work of the Agency’s informers were to be kept secret. By section 23(4), such information could be communicated only to the courts or the prosecuting authorities in connection with a specific criminal case, in keeping with the requirements of the Protection of Classified Information Act 2002 (see paragraph 61 below), and only after the informers in question had agreed to that. B.    Judicial review of the Agency’s refusal to disclose the information 1.      Proceedings before the Sofia City Administrative Court (a)    Course of the proceedings 12 .     Mr Kanev, acting both in his personal capacity and on behalf of the Committee, sought judicial review under section 36(9) of the 2007 Act (see paragraph 72 below) of the Agency’s decision to withhold the information he was seeking. He also referred to several other statutes, in particular the Protection of Personal Data Act 2002 (see paragraph 84 below). 13 .     He contended that not all information kept by the Agency was a “State secret” or an “official secret” (for the definitions of those terms in Bulgarian law, see paragraphs 107-109 below). It was therefore absurd, and contrary to section   36(4) of the 2007 Act (see paragraph 67 below) – which enshrined the right to access personal data processed by the Agency – to state that all responses from queries regarding information in its databases were classified. Moreover, according to this Court’s case-law, persons placed under covert surveillance were to be notified of that fact after that surveillance had ended, and both the collection and retention of data obtained in that way could constitute a breach of the Convention. Not only individuals but also legal persons could seek such information, because their Convention rights – in particular, the right to respect for one’s “correspondence” – could likewise be affected by covert surveillance. Such surveillance could clearly be used to safeguard national security, but that term could easily be construed by the authorities in an unduly expansive way. A potential misuse of the surveillance system could infringe his right to respect for his private life and both his and the Committee’s right to respect for their correspondence. One also had to consider the background against which he had made his request: the Court had already found that the covert surveillance system in Bulgaria was being overused, and the statements of the caretaker Minister of Internal Affairs (see paragraph   5 above) had rekindled the public’s misgivings on that point. 14 .     In his claim for judicial review, Mr Kanev also asked the Sofia   City Administrative Court to direct the Agency to produce ( a ) the order issued by the Agency’s head (required under section 32 of the 2007 Act – see paragraph   109 in fine below) which listed the categories of information due to be classified as being an “official secret”, and ( b ) any personal data of his that was being processed by the Agency. According to Mr Kanev, the court would be able to examine the Agency’s decision properly only if it had that evidence before it. 15 .     In response to the claim for judicial review, in October 2021 the Agency produced a May 2020 order issued by its head setting out the categories of information held by the Agency that were to be classified as constituting an “official secret”. Point 14 of the schedule to that order specified that one of those categories was “data resulting from checks in the [Agency’s]   databases containing classified information, in the event that those data fall short of a State secret” (for the definitions of the terms “official secret” and “State secret” in Bulgarian law, see paragraphs   107-109 below). According to the Agency, the information sought by the applicants had been properly withheld because it fell within the ambit of that point. In so far as the information concerned the personal data of other people, it could not be disclosed, except to authorities safeguarding national security, to the judicial authorities for the purposes of a specific criminal case, or to foreign authorities (if so required under an international treaty to which Bulgaria was party). 16 .     A month later, in November 2021, Mr Kanev brought separate proceedings for judicial review of the above-mentioned point 14 of the schedule (see paragraphs 32-39 below). 17 .     The Sofia City Administrative Court did not direct the Agency to produce data relating to Mr Kanev (as he had requested – see paragraph   14   (b) above), and the Agency did not do so. 18 .     In additional written submissions, Mr Kanev argued, in particular, that the Agency’s refusal to disclose the information that he had sought had not been properly justified with reference to specific impediments to its disclosure. He also pointed out that by law information marked as an “official secret” could remain classified for six months only; the Agency had not clarified when that period had started to run in his case. (b)    Judgment of the Sofia City Administrative Court 19 .     In November 2021 the Sofia City Administrative Court dismissed the claim for judicial review. It noted that Article 15(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation (see paragraphs 132 and 137 below) enshrined the right of access to personal data, but that under section 37a of the Protection of Personal Data Act 2002 (see paragraph 92 below) that right could be restricted by law. The law providing for the restriction in the case at hand was section   36(7) of the 2007 Act (see paragraph 70 below), which listed five grounds on which the Agency could refuse to give access to personal data. Those included safeguarding “State secrets” and “official secrets”, the sources of the information, and the covert methods or techniques for gathering it. The information sought by Mr Kanev could be seen as an “official secret”, as defined in point 14 of the schedule mentioned in paragraph   15 above (whose lawfulness the court could not review in those proceedings). It was within the Agency’s discretion to assess whether the disclosure of that information could compromise classified information or its work. That was why section 36(8) of the 2007 Act (see paragraph 71 below) required the Agency to set out only the legal grounds for its refusal to disclose such information. So far as the request had concerned Agency informers, it had been fully justified to turn it down, since the Agency could only disclose such information to other authorities in limited circumstances ( реш.   №   6820 от   19.11.2021 г. по адм. д. № 8299/2021 г., АС-София-град ). 2.      Appeal proceedings before the Supreme Administrative Court (a)    Course of the proceedings 20 .     Mr Kanev appealed against the Sofia City Administrative Court’s judgment, again acting both in a personal capacity and on behalf of the Committee. 21 .     Mr Kanev contended, in particular, that it remained unclear why the information that he had sought was to be viewed as an “official secret”. Personal data could not be classified information, since that would render nugatory the statutory right to obtain access to such data. The Protection of Personal Data Act 2002 (see paragraphs 84-105 below) enshrined an unqualified right for data subjects to obtain from data controllers confirmation as to whether their personal data were being processed, and information about the purposes of that processing; the Agency had fully disregarded that Act. It also remained unclear on which of the five grounds listed in section 36(7) of the 2007 Act (see paragraph 70 below) the Agency had based its refusal to disclose the information he had sought. Mr   Kanev also reiterated that information marked as “official secret” could remain classified for six months only, and that the Agency had not explained when that period had started to run in his case. He went on to argue that by omitting to direct the Agency to produce the personal data pertaining to him that it was processing, and then deciding whether the refusal to disclose those data had been justified only after seeing them (see paragraphs 14 (b) and 17 above), the Sofia City Administrative Court had infringed the rules of procedure. Lastly, Mr Kanev referred to this Court’s case-law under Article 8 of the Convention that related to the protection of personal data (including the processing of such data by security agencies) and covert surveillance. 22 .     In late June 2022 Mr Kanev asked the Supreme Administrative Court to stay the proceedings pending the determination of his claim for judicial review of point 14 of the schedule mentioned in paragraph 15 above. At that time, those proceedings were pending on appeal before a five-judge panel of the same court (see paragraphs 33-34 below). (b)    Judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court 23 .     In a final judgment of 6 July 2022 ( реш. № 6724 от 06.07.2022 г. по адм.   д. № 2157/2022 г., ВАС, V о. ), the Supreme Administrative Court upheld the Sofia City Administrative Court’s judgment. 24 .     It found that that court’s omission to direct the Agency to produce the information sought by Mr Kanev (see paragraphs 14 (b) and 17 above) had been fully in line with the rules of procedure, since the whole case revolved precisely around the question whether that information was to be disclosed – whereas Mr Kanev had in effect sought to obtain its disclosure through that request for evidence. All that was required from the courts in proceedings for judicial review of the Agency’s refusal to disclose such information was to assess whether that refusal was lawful. 25 .     The Supreme Administrative Court noted that the Agency could process personal data in the exercise of its statutory information-processing tasks (see paragraph 60 below). The 2007 Act did not define “personal data”, but the definition of the term could be found in Article 4(1) of Regulation (EU)   2016/679 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (“General Data Protection Regulation” – “the GDPR”) (see paragraphs 132-133 below). Under section 36(4) of the 2007 Act (see paragraph 67 below), anyone could request access to personal data that related to him or her and were being processed in the Agency’s databases without his or her knowledge. However, Mr Kanev’s request to the Agency had in effect concerned its intelligence-gathering methods rather than any personal data collected by it. As the Agency had stated in its response to Mr Kanev, information about those methods was classified, and the Agency had therefore correctly refused to disclose it. As regards specifically “special means of surveillance”, the only authority which could disclose whether such means had been used was the National Bureau (see paragraph 5 above and paragraph 82 (d) below). Given that it had been possible for Mr Kanev to approach the Bureau himself, the Agency’s refusal to disclose information could not be viewed as infringing Article   8 of the Convention. 26 .     For the Supreme Administrative Court, it had also been proper for the Agency not to disclose who had been recruited by it as an informer. By section   23(3)(3) of the 2007 Act (see paragraph 61 below), the identities and personal data of people who had collaborated with the Agency were to remain secret. They could only be disclosed to the national security authorities or the judicial authorities in connection with a specific criminal case. 27 .     Lastly, the court found that there was no reason to stay the proceedings while awaiting the adjudication of Mr Kanev’s claim for judicial review of   point   14 of the schedule referred to in paragraph 15 above (see also paragraphs   32-39 below). That adjudication could not affect the lawfulness of the Agency’s refusal to disclose the information sought by him, since the Agency itself had not referred to that provision in refusing his request; only the lower court had referred to it, and that had been an error – which had, however, not affected the overall correctness of the lower court’s judgment. III.     REQUEST TO THE NATIONAL BUREAU 28 .     In June 2021, concurrently with his information request to the Agency (see paragraph 6 above), Mr Kanev lodged a request for information with the National Bureau asking whether “special means of surveillance” had been used throughout the previous ten years with respect to him personally or with respect to members or staff of the Committee or lawyers acting on its behalf. 29 .     In mid-June 2021 the National Bureau instructed Mr Kanev to rectify his request by giving his personal identification number and his address. It also advised him that it could check whether “special means of surveillance” had been used with respect to members, staff or lawyers of the Committee only if each of the people concerned requested such information in relation to himself or herself. Also, as prescribed by section 34g of the 1997 Act (see paragraph   82   (e) below), the Bureau would inform people that “special means of surveillance” had been used with respect to them only if that had been done unlawfully. 30 .     In late June 2021 Mr Kanev rectified his request, in line with those instructions. 31 .     In early July 2021 the National Bureau sent letters to the five authorities empowered under Bulgarian law to deploy “special means of surveillance” (see paragraph 82 (c) below), asking them whether they had done   so with respect to Mr Kanev. Three of those authorities – the military intelligence service of the Ministry of Defence, the State Intelligence Agency, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs – replied in the negative. The replies of the two other authorities – the Agency and the Technical Operations Agency   – were classified. Having reviewed all of those replies, on 3   August 2021 the Bureau informed Mr Kanev that its enquiries had not indicated that “special means of surveillance” had been used unlawfully against him. IV.    JUDICIAL REVIEW OF THE AGENCY’S OFFICIAL-SECRETS RULE 32 .     In November 2021 Mr Kanev, acting solely in his personal capacity, asked the Supreme Administrative Court either to declare point 14 of the schedule mentioned in paragraph 15 above void or to annul it, on the basis that (a) it had not been duly published, (b) went beyond the statutory delegation and was too broad, and (c) contravened Article 8 of the Convention. 33 .     In June 2022 a three-judge panel of that court upheld the claim for judicial review, holding that the schedule, which it saw as a statutory instrument, had not been published, and that the procedure for its adoption had not been duly followed ( реш. № 6191 от 22.06.2022 г. по адм.   д. №   12238/2021 г., ВАС, VI о. ). 34 .     Following an appeal by the Agency, in December 2022 a five-judge panel of the same court quashed that judgment and remitted the case to another three-judge panel. It held that the initial three-judge panel had been incorrect to view the order as a statutory instrument; it was rather an internal act of the Agency, which meant that the rules governing the adoption and publication of statutory instruments did not apply to it ( реш.   №   11947 от   21.12.2022 г. по адм. д. № 7413/2022 г., ВАС, петчл. с-в ). 35 .     In January 2023 the new three-judge panel referred the case to the Sofia City Administrative Court, on the basis that that court (rather than the Supreme Administrative Court) had subject-matter jurisdiction to hear a claim directed against the schedule, which was an internal act of the Agency ( опр.   №   544 от 17.01.2023 г. по адм. д. № 11878/2022 г., ВАС, I о. ). 36 .     In June 2023 a three-judge panel of the Sofia City Administrative Court dismissed the claim, finding that the types of information set out in point 14 had been properly designated as “official secrets” ( реш.   №   3623 от   02.06.2023 г. по адм. д. № 620/2023 г., АдмС-София-град ). 37 .     Mr Kanev appealed against that judgment, and in December 2023 the Supreme Administrative Court quashed it and remitted the case to the Sofia City Administrative Court, on the basis that under the rules of procedure it should have examined the claim in a single-judge formation rather than a three-judge panel ( реш. № 13059 от 28.12.2023 г. по адм.   д. №   7313/2023   г., ВАС, V о. ). 38 .     In March 2024 the Sofia City Administrative Court, sitting in a single-judge formation, dismissed the claim, giving the same reasons as earlier ( реш.   №   1830 от 20.03.2024 г. по адм. д. № 90/2024 г., АдмС-София-град ). 39 .     Mr Kanev appealed to the Supreme Administrative Court. On 24   June 2025 that court dismissed the appeal, agreeing with the reasons given by the lower court ( реш. № 6883 от 24.06.2025 г. по адм. д. № 4426/2024 г., ВАС, V   о. ). V.      JUNE 2023 REQUEST TO THE AGENCY A.    The request and the Agency’s response to it 40 .     In mid-June 2023 Mr Kanev once again requested the Agency to inform him whether its databases contained information on whether he personally or the Committee (on whose behalf he was also acting) had been the target of intelligence-gathering, and whether during the previous ten years or earlier members or staff of the Committee had been recruited by the Agency. 41 .     At the end of June 2023 the Agency once again refused to disclose the information sought by Mr Kanev, again citing section 36(7) of the 2007 Act and the corresponding regulation (see paragraphs 69-70 below). It gave almost the exact same reasons as those that it had given in July 2021 (see paragraphs   10-11 above), and added that under point 5 of part II of Schedule   1 to the Protection of Classified Information Act 2002 (see paragraphs 106 and   108 below), information that could lead to the identification of informers of the security services was a “State secret”. B.    Judicial review of the Agency’s refusal to disclose the information 1.      Proceedings before the Sofia City Administrative Court 42 .     Mr Kanev, acting both in his personal capacity and on behalf of the Committee, sought judicial review under section 36(9) of the 2007 Act (see paragraph   72 below) of the new decision by the Agency to withhold the information that he was seeking. 43 .     In January 2024 the Sofia City Administrative Court set the Agency’s decision aside. It held that, in so far as Mr Kanev’s request had concerned other people (members or staff of the Committee), it had been irregular, as he had neither given the names of the people concerned nor produced authority to seek information on their behalf. A person could seek access only to his or her own personal data. By examining the request on the merits instead of referring it back to Mr Kanev for rectification, the Agency had breached the rules of procedure. The remainder of its decision had also been contrary to those rules, as the Agency had not set out the facts justifying its refusal to disclose information but had merely cited the relevant legal provisions. It had, moreover, disregarded its decision in respect of Mr Kanev’s June   2021 request (see paragraphs 9-11 above); that decision, which had become final after the unsuccessful legal challenge against it, would normally preclude a fresh decision on the same point. The matter was therefore to be referred back to the Agency with instructions to (a) direct Mr Kanev to rectify his request so far as it related to other people, (b) take into account its earlier decision, and (c) give proper reasons for its decision ( реш. № 136 от 05.01.2024   г. по   адм. д. № 7471/2023 г., АдмС-София-град ). 2.      Appeal proceedings before the Supreme Administrative Court 44 .     The Agency appealed against the Sofia City Administrative Court’s judgment. 45 .     In a final judgment of 16 July 2024 ( реш. № 8858 от 16.07.2024 г. по адм. д. № 2605/2024 г., ВАС, V о. ), the Supreme Administrative Court partly upheld the lower court’s judgment. 46 .     It held that the lower court had been correct to find that, in so far as Mr   Kanev’s request had concerned other people, it had been irregular, as Mr   Kanev had neither given the names of those