Court of Justice (First Chamber) 30 April 2025, C-313/23, C-316/23 and C-332/23 (Inspektorat kam Visshia sadeben savet.)

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The Court of Justice (First Chamber) held that the principle of judicial independence under the second subparagraph of Article 19(1) TEU precludes a national practice whereby members of a judicial inspectorate body—competent to scrutinise judges and propose disciplinary proceedings—continue in office beyond their constitutionally fixed terms without an express, clear, and precise legal basis circumscribing such extension and without a practical guarantee that the extension is limited in time. The Court further held that disclosure of banking-secrecy-protected personal data of judges, prosecutors, and their family members to such a body for asset-verification purposes falls within the material scope of the GDPR, and that the authorising court is neither a 'controller' within the meaning of Article 4(7) nor a 'supervisory authority' within the meaning of Article 51 of the GDPR. Consequently, a court with jurisdiction solely to authorise such disclosure is not required, in the absence of an action under Article 79(1) GDPR, to ensure of its own motion compliance with data-security provisions, even where the requesting body has previously committed a personal data breach.AI