ECHR and the right of access to information: First ruling by the Paris Administrative Court
In what looks set to be a major legal saga in 2026—and perhaps for years to come—the Paris Administrative Court appears to have issued the first ruling regarding the application of Italian court decisions highlighting the potential non-compliance of the French system of communication rights with the ECHR.
This decision is disappointing.
The Court will indeed find that there has been no violation of Article 8 of the ECHR because:
The taxpayer had been spontaneously asked to provide the bank statements subject to the right of access.
The fight against tax fraud and tax evasion could, under Article 8(2) of the ECHR, justify an interference with the taxpayer’s private life.
The taxpayer benefited from the protections provided by Articles L.76 B and R 81-3 of the Tax Procedure Code and from the application of tax confidentiality.
the taxpayer had the opportunity, as part of the dispute on the merits, "to submithis or her case to the tax judge for review so that the judge could assess the proportionality of this interference."
The Court misinterprets Article 8(2), which, while it is true that it permits an interference with the right to privacy to be justified by the fight against fraud, requires in any event that such interference be provided for by law. These are cumulative conditions.
However, it is precisely this lack of a legal framework that poses a problem, as the European Court of Human Rights has pointed out in the Italian cases.
The other points raised by the Court do not appear any more convincing, especially since some of them were expressly rejected by the ECHR in the Italian case.
One cannot help but wonder why the Conseil d'Etat was not consulted, through a request for an opinion, on the issue of the validity of broadcasting rights. Indeed, this matter appears to meet all the conditions for such a procedure to be initiated.
It should be noted that the Paris Administrative Court of Appeal referred a preliminary ruling on constitutionality (QPC) to Conseil d'Etat this week, Conseil d'Etat the lack of an effective remedy against the disclosure rights provided for in Article L.85 of the Code of Tax Procedures (CAA Paris, March 20, 2026, No. 25PA01093)
TA Paris, March 18, 2020, No. 2422648
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