The Right to Know the Truth in the Light of the Right to Privacy: The Case of Victims of the Communist Regime in Europe

Abstract

The right to know the truth is established as one of the rights constituting the right to effective remedy but in post-Communist countries this right is limited to victims of the Communist regime because of failure to access the files of former secret services on two different grounds: certain victim’s information is protected as personal data on the grounds of privacy rights and certain files are still kept as a classified information. Thus, the article analyses if such limitations in post-Communist countries are compatible with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The answer is provided using mainly an analysis of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. Lithuania as a case study was chosen for the analysis in a situation where certain files are kept as classified information.

Keywords

• access to the files
• post-communist countries
• private life
• right to know the truth
• victim