It is important to note that even after France enacted a FOIA in 1978, the RG continued to operate its files system illegally until October 1991, when the French government issued a series of decrees regulating RG files and their use.

In 1992, a number of Scientologists decided to challenge the legality of the RG’s blanket refusal to permit citizens access to their files. Each had reason to believe that false data in the RG’s files lay behind government discrimination they were experiencing in their personal lives. For example, the bank accounts of several had been mysteriously cancelled, with no explanation given — in one case, the Scientologist in question had been a client of the bank for twenty years.

Because the goal is not to wage court battles, they first sought assistance from the French Data Protection Agency, hoping to gain access to the files with a straightforward request. However, the CNIL claimed after a visit with the RG that the Scientologists in question had no right of access.

Regarding this decision as fundamentally flawed and in direct violation of France’s FOI law, twenty-five Church members were forced to file suit in a Paris court against the French Ministry of the Interior, which controls the RG, to obtain access to the files. That was the start of a long and ultimately successful effort to force one of France’s most secretive agencies to bring itself into alignment with the requirements of an open, democratic society.

In 1998, the Paris Administrative Court ordered that the RG produce its file on one of the Scientologists — which the RG refused to do. To make matters worse, in December 2001, the rights of French citizens suffered a further setback when a French court ruled that a citizen cannot ever challenge the Ministry of Interior’s judgement regarding whether or not information collected on that individual is for security purposes. The court further ruled that the judiciary itself does not have standing to challenge this determination.

On July 30, 2003, computer engineer and president of the French Committee of Scientologists against Discrimination (CFSD), Michel Raoust (above), won a major victory for citizens’ right to access RG files on themselves.

This judicial interpretation seemed to undermine the very essence of open government and was more redolent of a police state than a modern democracy. The Scientologists, more determined than ever, appealed to France’s highest administrative court, the Conseil d’Etat (Council of State). And on 30 July 2003, they achieved a momentous victory that will benefit all French people.

The Council of State ruled, in the case brought by Scientologist Michel Raoust, that vague and unspecific claims could no longer be used by the government to bar French citizens from gaining access to these files. The Court stated that denial of access was wholly unwarranted and that “Therefore, Mr. Raoust is fully justified in his demand that the decision denying him access to the information relating to him in the files of the Renseignements Généraux be cancelled.”

But despite the Raoust decision, the RG continued to refuse access to their files to 24 other Scientologists, claiming it would violate “public safety.” Not known for aborting a given course, the Scientologists persisted, and in a decision of 21 November 2003, the Conseil d’Etat ruled in their favour, again confirming the Raoust judgement.

These rulings set an historic precedent; for the first time in France the highest administrative authority declared that the government must provide specific and objective evidence if it chose to deny individuals access to information the government retains on them. The relevance of these judgements carries all the more weight when one considers how patently suspect claims of “public security” are currently being brandished by certain government bodies to deny fundamental rights and due process to innocent and law-abiding men and women.

Since these judgements were rendered, members of political, philosophical or religious minorities have taken advantage of their rights based on the legal precedents the Scientologists established. More will surely do so.