The commented judgment of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of “L. B. v. Hungary” is of interest not just as an example of a shift in the position of the Court, bearing in mind the judgment of the Chamber finding no violation of the applicant’s right to private life. It is important from the point of view of both legislative and judicial practice, and the development of human rights law, as decisive importance is attached not just to the arguments of the ruling itself, but, in particular, to the substantial concepts outlined in the concurring and dissenting opinions of judges, which will further affect the development of case law. In this case, the Court applied the doctrine of general measures developed in previous rulings, determining that the Hungarian legislative policy in the form of publication of personal data of tax violates Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Courts’ criticism is directed at the quality of the parliamentary review conducted at the national level and the balance established by national authorities between competing individual and public interests. At the same time, attention should be paid to the development of legal approaches based on the legal paradigms of the Court itself in previous rulings, as well as reflected in the dissenting opinions of judges during the consideration of the analysed case in the Chamber and the Grand Chamber of the Court. They draw attention to the positive obligations of the State to respect and protect fundamental rights, in particular, the right to private life, which extends to the protection of personal tax data. The criterion of the parliamentary control quality cannot replace the individual assessment of the analysed measure in the applicant’s specific situation. Despite the importance of the doctrine of general measures, the Court itself should have assessed the proportionality of the measure applied to the applicant in order to determine the balance between the benefits obtained as a result of law enforcement and the harm that may have been caused to the fundamental right.