Judgment of the Court (Grand Chamber) of 22 June 2021 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Satversmes tiesa – Latvia) – Proceedings brought by B

(Case C-439/19) ¹

(Reference for a preliminary ruling – Protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data – Regulation (EU) 2016/679 – Articles 5, 6 and 10 – National legislation providing for public access to personal data relating to penalty points imposed for road traffic offences – Lawfulness – Concept of ‘personal data relating to criminal convictions and offences’ – Disclosure for the purpose of improving road safety – Right of public access to official documents – Freedom of information – Reconciliation with the fundamental rights to respect for private life and to the protection of personal data – Re-use of data – Article 267 TFEU – Temporal effect of a preliminary ruling – Ability of a constitutional court of a Member State to maintain the legal effects of national legislation incompatible with EU law – Principles of primacy of EU law and of legal certainty)

Language of the case: Latvian

Referring court

Satversmes tiesa

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: B

Other party: Latvijas Republikas Saeima

Operative part of the judgment

Article 10 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation), must be interpreted as applying to the processing of personal data relating to penalty points imposed on drivers of vehicles for road traffic offences.

The provisions of Regulation (EU) 2016/679, in particular Article 5(1), Article 6(1)(e) and Article 10 thereof, must be interpreted as precluding national legislation which obliges the public body responsible for the register in which penalty points imposed on drivers of vehicles for road traffic offences are entered to make those data accessible to the public, without the person requesting access having to establish a specific interest in obtaining the data.

The provisions of Regulation (EU) 2016/679, in particular Article 5(1), Article 6(1)(e) and Article 10 thereof, must be interpreted as precluding national legislation which authorises the public body responsible for the register in which penalty points imposed on drivers of vehicles for road traffic offences are entered to disclose those data to economic operators for re-use.

The principle of primacy of EU law must be interpreted as precluding the constitutional court of a Member State, before which a complaint has been brought challenging national legislation that proves, in the light of a preliminary ruling given by the Court of Justice, to be incompatible with EU law, from deciding, in accordance with the principle of legal certainty, that the legal effects of that legislation be maintained until the date of delivery of the judgment by which it rules finally on that constitutional complaint.

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¹ OJ C 280, 19.8.2019.