CEDH · CASELAW;CLIN;ENG — 27 août 1997

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Sweden - 20837/92 Judgment 27.8.1997 Article 8 Article 8-1 Respect for private life Communication, without the patient's consent, of personal and confidential medical data by one public authority to another: no violation Article 6 Article 6-1 Civil rights and obligations Lack of possibility for patient, prior to the measure, to challenge it before a court   : Article 6 $ 1 not applicable   [This summary is extracted from the Court’s official reports (Series A or Reports of Judgments and Decisions). Its formatting and structure may therefore differ from the Case-Law Information Note summaries.] I.   ARTICLE 8 OF THE CONVENTION A.   Article 8 § 1 Under the Swedish system, the contested disclosure depended not only on fact that applicant had submitted a compensation claim to the Social Insurance Office but also on a number of factors beyond her control – it could not therefore be inferred from her request for compensation that she had waived in an unequivocal manner her right to respect for private life with regard to the medical records at the clinic – accordingly Article 8 § 1 applied. Medical records in question contained highly personal and sensitive data about applicant – although they remained confidential, they had been disclosed to another public authority and therefore to a wider circle of public servants – collection and storage of information at clinic and its subsequent communication to Office had served different purposes – disclosure thus entailed an interference with applicant's right to respect for private life. B.   Article 8 § 2 1.   “In accordance with the law” Requirement was satisfied as interference had a legal basis and was foreseeable. 2.   Legitimate aim Protection of the economic well-being of the country: communication of data was potentially decisive for allocation of public funds to deserving claimants. 3.   “Necessary in a democratic society” The medical data were communicated by one public institution to another in context of an assessment of whether applicant satisfied legal conditions for obtaining a benefit which she herself had requested – the Office had a legitimate need to check information received from her against data in the possession of the clinic – the claim concerned a back injury which she had allegedly suffered and all the medical records produced to the Office contained information relevant to applicant's back problems – allegation that clinic could not reasonably have considered certain records material to the Office's decision was unsubstantiated – in addition, the contested measure was subject to important limitations and was accompanied by effective and adequate safeguards against abuse – there were thus relevant and sufficient reasons for the communication of the applicant's medical records by the clinic to the Office; the measure was not disproportionate to the legitimate aim pursued. Conclusion : no violation (unanimously). II.   ARTICLE 6 § 1 OF THE CONVENTION The clinic had been under an obligation to supply the Office with information on the applicant concerning circumstances of importance to the application of the Insurance Act – thus, the obligation incumbent on the imparting authority vis-à-vis the requesting authority depended exclusively on the relevance of the data in its possession; it comprised all data which the clinic had in its possession concerning the applicant and which were potentially relevant to the Office's determination of her compensation claim – scope of this obligation and fact that the clinic enjoyed a very wide discretion in assessing what data would be relevant – a “right” to prevent communication of such data could not, on arguable grounds, be said to be recognised under national law. Conclusions : inapplicable (six votes to three) and no violation (unanimously). III.   ARTICLE 13 OF THE CONVENTION A separate issue arose under Article 13 – having regard to above findings under Article 8, applicant had an arguable claim for the purposes of Article 13 – question whether she was afforded an effective remedy – in this regard, it was open to her to bring criminal and civil proceedings before the ordinary courts against the relevant staff of the clinic and to claim damages for breach of professional secrecy – she thus had access to an authority empowered both to deal with the substance of her Article 8 complaint and to grant her relief – having regard to the limited nature of the disclosure and to the different safeguards, in particular the Office's obligation to secure and maintain the confidentiality of the information, the various ex post facto remedies referred to satisfied Article 13. Conclusion : no violation (unanimously).   © Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court. 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