EU DATA NULLIFICATION: CONFUSION AND THE RULE OF LAW

Abstract Effective justice seeks for the truth and consequently must be founded on an analysis of all relevant evidence. Only where a manifestly greater societal interest intrudes, can there be a privilege against the production of testimony. For the Court of Justice of the EU, however, an activist interpretation of Article 8 of the EU Charter, promoting security of data, has become an elevated privacy right which justifies nullifying crucial information, thus shielding criminals, undermining civil trials and obstructing searches for missing persons. No convincingly apodictic conclusion emerges from the several judgments of the court, while the exceptions identified undermine, rather than support, any articulated core principle.