CCR refuses digital transparency; Artificial Intelligence, the perfect pretext for hiding asset declarations

Anyone who still had any doubt that Artificial Intelligence has negative effects, that it is the realization of a global conspiracy, has had a strong argument for two days in support of their respective ideas: the motivation of decision 297/29 May 2025 by which the Constitutional Court decided that the asset and interest declarations of dignitaries and public officials should no longer be published on the website of the National Integrity Agency or on the website of the public institution in which the respective persons work.

Paragraph 66 of the motivation is clear: "(...) the text of the Constitution opposes mass processing of personal data by publishing asset declarations with the consequence of exposing the person to unjustified public attention. The Court emphasizes that the development of artificial intelligence technologies makes it possible to create personalized behavioral models and patterns in relation to each declarant, which, combined with the abundance of private information disclosed, by effect of the law, in the public space, poses a risk in the sense of disregarding human dignity and the individuality of the person, weakening to the point of annulment the constitutional protection that the person must enjoy with regard to his or her private life”.

At first glance at this paragraph, you tend to say that the respective text was written with ChatGPT or DeepSeek, because it is difficult to understand how such an argument could have come out of the pen or keyboard tormented by the constitutional judges. But no! Neither ChatGPT nor DeepSeek would have incriminated themselves to satisfy those in the CCR who decided that declarations of assets and interests must remain secret.

Therefore, the only possible scenario is also the real one: the respective text was written and signed by the judges of the CCR. Not by all of them, because there were also two separate opinions, but there was the necessary majority to establish that AI is harmful to the transparency of declarations of assets and interests.

• Protection of privacy, the supreme argument of the CCR

It is certain that, although the judges of the CCR tried to argue extensively the decision of May 29, 2025, the recently published reasoning raises serious questions regarding the balance between the protection of privacy and the public interest related to transparency in the public sector.

For example, the CCR criticizes the provision of art. 3 para. (2) of Law no. 176/2010 to the extent that it obliges the person making the asset declaration to include the income of the spouse and of the dependent adult children, assuming personal liability. According to paragraphs 15-21 of the reasoning, the Court states that no one can be held criminally liable for declarations concerning another person, especially if that person is not obliged by law to collaborate. This admits the possibility of a contrary will on the part of the spouse or the adult child, thus blocking the ability of the declarant to comply with the law. However, this reasoning, although formally correct, ignores the purpose of the law: verification of jointly acquired assets. The Court acknowledges in the reasoning of the decision that the legal community regime implies the division of assets, but artificially separates the obligation to declare from the real situation of the holder. The CCR thus misses the chance to ask the legislator for a balanced solution: creating a communication obligation for the spouse or child in cases where the patrimony is joint or interdependent, without completely exonerating the declarant.

Another bizarre situation concerns the interpretation of art. 12 paragraph (6) of the same law, which provides for the publication of declarations on the website of the ANI and of the employing institution, with certain anonymized data. The CCR now considers that this publication violates the right to private life guaranteed by art. 26 of the Constitution and art. 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In the opinion of the CCR, anonymization is no longer sufficient, as long as the simple indication of the locality allows the identification of the property in small communities, as is evident from paragraph 29 of the reasoning of decision 297/29 May 2025. 29). Moreover, the judges of the CCR invoke in paragraphs 49 and 50 the protection of third party data, i.e. of persons who offer or receive loans, co-owners, etc., for which the Court accuses an abusive transfer of personal data from the sphere of private life to that of public interest.

However, we consider that the reasoning goes too far in limiting public access to the respective declarations of wealth and interests, because the transparency of the assets of dignitaries is not a fad, but an instrument of democratic control. The fact that in some cases the name of the spouse or the residence can be deduced does not justify concealing the information as a whole. A stricter regulation on access, not the elimination of publication, would have been the proportionate way.

• ANI, acused to act beyond legal limits

In the motivation, the CCR draws attention to the fact that the Completion Guide developed by the National Integrity Agency requires the explicit indication of the name of the spouse and children, although the law does not impose it. The Guide, the Court states, has no normative value, and the ANI creates, through "soft law”, obligations that go beyond the law, inducing conduct against the law. Although the Court is right from a legal point of view, depriving the ANI of the possibility of issuing clear and applicable guides, without proposing a robust legal framework to fill these gaps, leaves a gap for interpretation.

In arguing their decision, the judges of the Constitutional Court invoke the European principles regarding the protection of personal data: data minimization, purpose limitation, accuracy and temporal limitation of storage, concluding that publication is "no longer necessary”. This conclusion is, however, unconvincing in the context in which the Court admits that ANI has limited powers in investigations, and declaration and publication are the only instruments of extrajudicial preventive control available to the public. In addition, the CCR ignores the fact that any person targeted by the exposure is free to choose whether to assume public office. Thus, he is not an ordinary citizen, but a person who implicitly consents to part of this transparency.

• Transparency, a simple option in the opinion of the CCR

The Court also argues - in paragraph 49 of the reasoning - that by publishing declarations of assets and interests on the internet, information such as marital status, borrowers, relatives, etc., becomes public without discrimination. However, we consider that it is the task of Parliament to update the declaration forms, to establish what is "unusual" or what can be excluded, not to abandon the entire mechanism of publishing declarations of assets and interests.

Practically, by the decision of May 29, 2025, By this decision, the CCR shifted the burden of compliance from the declarant to the legislator, but without establishing clear deadlines or obligations, and created a dangerous precedent regarding the absolute prevalence of private life over the public interest. Although by decision 297/2025 the Court maintains the obligation to declare, in reality it empties the verifiability and control of the information included in the asset declaration and the declaration of interests of content. Instead of asking Parliament to refine the legislation through clarity, distinction and proportionality, the CCR opts for withdrawal solutions, which risk discrediting the entire asset verification system and making public functions opaque. The Court abandons an institutional logic of the guarantor of the public interest in favor of a super-protection granted to personal data, a super-protection that is elevated to the rank of legal dogma. If this line of jurisprudence continues, integrity in public office will transform from an obligation into an option, and society will lose one of the few instruments of civic control over the political class.