Key Benefits:
The National Commission for Computer Science and Freedoms,
Seizure by the Minister of Justice of a draft decree in the Council of State relating to the registration, retention and processing by the court of proceedings, the registry of the Court of Grand Instance of Paris and the diplomatic and consular officials of personal data relating to the formation, modification and dissolution of the civil pact of solidarity and repealing decrees No. 99-1090 and 99-1091 of 1999
Considering Council of Europe's Convention No. 108 of 28 January 1981 for the Protection of Persons with regard to the automated processing of personal data;
Considering Directive No. 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and the free flow of such data;
Considering the Civil Code, in particular articles 49 and 515-1 to 515-7;
Having regard to Act No. 78-17 of 6 January 1978 on computers, files and freedoms as amended by Act No. 2004-801 of 6 August 2004 on the protection of natural persons in relation to personal data processing, including Article 11-4°;
Having regard to Decree No. 62-921 of 3 August 1962 amending certain rules relating to acts of civil status, and in particular Article 10 thereof;
In conjunction with Decrees No. 99-1090 and No. 99-1091 of 21 December 1999 on the conditions for the collection, processing and preservation of information relating to the formation, modification and dissolution of the civil pact of solidarity and authorizing the implementation by the Courts of Instance, the Registry of the Court of Grand Instance of Paris and the French diplomatic and consular officers;
In view of Decree No. 2005-1309 of 20 October 2005 adopted for the application of Act No. 78-17 of 6 January 1978 on computers, files and freedoms, as amended by Act No. 2004-801 of 6 August 2004;
In view of deliberation No. 99-056 of 25 November 1999 on the draft decree in the Council of State concerning the measures for the application of Act No. 99-944 of 15 November 1999 on the civil pact of solidarity and the computerization of the registers for the registration of civil pacts of solidarity;
In view of the draft decree in the Council of State of the Minister of Justice relating to the registration, retention and processing by the court of proceedings, the office of the Court of Grand Instance of Paris and the diplomatic and consular officers of personal data relating to the formation, modification and dissolution of the civil pact of solidarity and repealing decrees No. 99-1090 and 99-1091 of 21 December 1999;
Considering the draft decree of the Minister of Justice on the declaration, modification, dissolution and publicity of the civil pact of solidarity repealing Decree No. 99-1089 of 21 December 1999 and amending Article 10 of Decree No. 62-921 of 3 August 1962;
After hearing Mr. Patrick Delnatte, Commissioner, in his report and Ms. Pascale Compagnie, Commissioner of the Government, in his comments,
Provides the following notice:
The commission was seized for advice by the Minister of Justice of a draft decree in the Council of State relating to the registration, retention and processing by the court of proceedings, the registry of the Court of Grand Instance of Paris and the diplomatic and consular officials of personal data relating to the formation, modification and dissolution of the civil pact of solidarity and repealing decrees No. 91-1090 and 99-1090 1999.
This text is accompanied by a draft decree providing for the practical modalities for the implementation of the new civil pact advertising regime, as well as an amendment to the decree of 3 August 1962 to allow the registration on the margins of the extract of birth without filiation of each of the partners of a mention concerning the declaration, modification and dissolution of the civil pact of solidarity.
The draft decree submitted to the Commission's notice, taken for the purposes of the provisions of the Act of 15 November 1999 relating to the civil covenant of solidarity and provided for in Article 15 of the same text, is to organize the implementation of Article 14-1 of the law of 15 November 1999 referred to above, on the one hand, and Articles 515-3, 515-3-1 and 515-7 of the Civil Code, as they result of the 23
This first amendment combines the realization of anonymous statistics on registered pacts (number of pacts concluded or ending between persons of different sexes, female and male, number of pacts ending in each of the cases referred to in Article 515-7 of the Civil Code, average duration of the pacts) and the average age of concerted persons.
The second amendment is intended to define the terms of the new civil solidarity pact advertising regime applicable as of January 1, 2007, regardless of the date of conclusion of the pact.
With regard to the establishment of statistics to be carried out each semester by the courts of proceedings, the Commission notes that the draft decree is limited to the inclusion, in terms of the purposes of the computerized registers of the civil covenants of solidarity, the new possibilities for the realization of statistics required by the legislator which is limited "to the production of information made anonymous".
The commission observes that the realization of these statistics necessarily involves the collection of data on the sex of persons concluding a civil pact of solidarity, which is explicitly provided for in article 4 of the draft decree. It takes note that, in the same terms of the provision that allows the realization of these anonymous statistics, it is by derogation from the provisions of Article 8 of Act No. 78-17 of 6 January 1978 as amended that these statistics distinguish the data relating to pacts between different sexes, persons of female sex and persons of male sex.
To the extent that the collection of this information is new, the Ministry of Justice will have to transmit to the commission a copy of the computerized registers of the civil solidarity pacts declared in 1999.
The commission then observes that it is the result of the provisions of the law of June 23, 2006, referred to above, that the new regime of advertising of the conclusion, modification and dissolution of the civil pact of solidarity takes the form of a mention on the margins of the act of birth of each partner, with indication of the identity of the other partner.
The draft decree relating to the declaration, modification, dissolution and publicity of the civil pact of solidarity repealing Decree No. 99-1089 of 21 December 1999 and amending Article 10 of Decree No. 62-921 of 3 August 1962, transmitted for information to the commission, provides that this mention shall be on the margins of the extracts of birth without filiation, which any applicant may obtain without having to justify his request.
The draft decree submitted to the commission organizes the modalities of this new advertising regime and draws the consequences for the computerized registers of the civil pacts of solidarity.
To the extent that the draft decree submitted to the commission eliminates the obligation on the registry of the courts of instance of the place of residence of the partners to transmit to the registry of the court of instance of their place of birth their joint declaration of contracting a civil pact of solidarity, this text provides for the payment to the archives, as of January 1, 2007, of the registers held by the registry offices of the courts of instance of the place of birth.
Since the advertisement of the civil pact of solidarity is now ensured by a statement on the margins of the birth certificate of each of the partners, the draft decree provides for the maintenance of the registers held by the registry of the courts of instance of the place of residence of the partners, without the possibility of communication of the information processed.
In order to ensure the same regime of advertising to the pacts between French partners and between a French partner and a foreign national partner born abroad, the same draft text maintains the specific registry held by the registry of the Paris High Court and provides for the possibility of communication of the processed information, which is identical to those contained in the registers held by the court registers, to any applicant upon request.
The Commission takes note of the changes made to the computerized registers of the civil covenants of solidarity, as recalled above, and requests that the corresponding amendment declaration be issued.
Beyond this observation, the commission emphasizes that the provisions of the law of 23 June 2006 mentioned above, complemented by those of the draft decree submitted for advice to the commission and those of the draft decree that was transmitted to it for information, have, unlike the choice that had been made in 1999, to open wide publicity around the civil pact of solidarity, on the one hand, and around the identity of persons concluding such a covenant, on the other.
If it does not belong to the commission to question the choices made by the legislator and the Government, it is up to him to draw the consequences of these choices in the light of the protection established by the amended Act of 6 January 1978.
The Commission thus takes note of the willingness of the Government and the legislator to profoundly amend the civil pact's advertising regime and to move from a regime providing for the communication of information about the pact and its signatories to a series of organizations and individuals limitingly listed by the texts applicable to an advertising regime enabling any claimant to obtain such information.
It also observes that this new advertising regime, taking the form of a marginal mention called to appear on the extracts of birth certificates that are likely to be requested by any appellant, brings the formalism of the conclusion, the modification and dissolution of this contract of the common acts of the civil status closer to the banalization of the civil pact of solidarity.
The Commission emphasizes that this new advertising regime will not only focus on the conclusion, modification or dissolution of the covenant, but also on the identity of the other partner, such as civil status acts whose advertising is established by a statement on the margins of the birth certificate.
The Commission therefore considers that the will of the Government and the legislator to assimilate the conclusion, modification and dissolution of the civil pact of solidarity to any other act of civil life, on the one hand, and to assure it, by a marginal mention showing the identity of the other partner on the act of birth of each signatory of the pact, the same advertising as to all acts of civil status, on the other hand, translated
Seven years after the adoption of the Civil Pact of Solidarity Act and its implementing decrees, the commission, like the Government and the legislature, wishes to draw the conclusions of the evolution of the conditions, both from the point of view of the state of the society with respect to the civil pact of solidarity and from the point of view of the legal framework of this contract, which had been able, in 1999, to justify the adoption of special protection measures in January 1978
The Commission considers that the modification of the advertising regime of the conclusion, modification and dissolution of the civil pact of solidarity through a marginal mention showing the identity of each partner no longer justifies a specific protection around the collection and processing of data relating to the civil covenants of solidarity and their signatories, information that any applicant may obtain, if any, by requesting an extract of a birth certificate.
It therefore considers that the changes in the computerized registers of the civil pacts of solidarity fall under the ordinary declaration procedure.
The president,
A. Türk
