European Ombudsman closes case on the EDPS’s refusal to grant public access to documents

The European Ombudsman has delivered a decision on a complaint (no 274/2021/TE) submitted against the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), following the latter’s refusal to grant public access to documents related to an investigation into the EU institutions’ compliance with the Court of Justice’s Schrems II judgment (C-311/18).

The EDPS’s refusal to grant access to the documents requested was based on the argument that the outcome of the ongoing decision-making process concerning the documents would be jeopardised by their disclosure. The Ombudsman’s inquiry team inspected the documents and found that several of them contained information that could not reasonably be understood to undermine the decision-making process. The