NRP End of Life: SNSF will take Court decision on accessing documents to highest instance

To protect the rights and interests of researchers, the SNSF will elevate to the Supreme Court the Federal Administrative Court's decision on a complaint by the Dignitas association.

Based on the Transparency Act, which regulates access to official documents, the Dignitas association had demanded access to documents of NRP 67 "End of Life". The SNSF complied with this demand to the extent permitted by the law. However, it granted only limited access to documents in cases where such access would have run contrary to the protection of the personality rights of the researchers concerned. On 16 December 2014, the Federal Administrative Court made a decision on a corresponding complaint filed by Dignitas.

In its decision, the Federal Administrative Court supported the SNSF's stance on access to documents to a very large degree. Nevertheless, the SNSF decided to bring this decision before the Federal Supreme Court in order to safeguard the rights and interests of the researchers concerned. This step comes in response to certain aspects of the Administrative Court's decision which provide for the partial disclosure of personal information from expert reviews. In the SNSF's view such information is protected by data privacy and personality rights and must not be disclosed.