The Right to Be Forgotten in the European Union: Towards a Uniform Approach?

Abstract

This article aims to shed light on the application of the ‘right to be forgotten’ in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU or Court) as well as the German Highest Courts, that is, the German Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) and the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) from a fundamental rights perspective, thereby also considering the principles established by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). While the CJEU in its decision in Google Spain (Case C-131/12) established a rebuttable presumption of supremacy in favour of the right to privacy, the German Highest Courts have ever since acknowledged the equal weight of fundamental rights in order to ensure a fair balancing of the latter against each other. However, considering the CJEU’s decision in GC and Others (Case C-136/17), the Court has arguably shifted its approach, thereby getting closer to an actual fair balancing of fundamental rights. It will be argued that such change in paradigm arguably provides for an approximation of the latter approaches in favour of the approach of the German Highest Courts. Such development is welcome, not only because it is in line with the principles established by the ECtHR and thus provides for a uniform standard of protection of fundamental rights within the EU, but also because of the existing lack of a hierarchy of the respective fundamental rights concerned which, as a consequence and matter of principle, obstructs the presumption of supremacy of one over the other. artificial intelligence, GDPR, digital humanism, rule of law, human dignity, constitutionalism