Refusal of access to the land register to a journalist investigating the real estate activities of an industrialist

Facts

Philippe Clavel, a journalist, requested to consult the land register of the municipality of X in order to inventory all the properties belonging to Z, an industrialist suspected of having appropriated agricultural land. The Registrar of the land register of Sarine refused him access. Philippe Clavel appealed to the supervisory authority of the land register of the canton of Fribourg, which rejected his appeal. Philippe Clavel then filed an administrative appeal to the FC, which also rejected his appeal.

Considerations

The FC considered that the land register is public (Art. 970 para. 1 CC), but that its consultation requires justifying a legitimate interest (Art. 970 para. 2 CC). In this case, the interest invoked by the journalist, namely to investigate the real estate activities of an industrialist in order to reveal them in a press article, does not have a direct link with the function of the land register as an instrument of land publicity. The balance of the interests at stake does not show that the journalist's interest should prevail over that of the targeted owner.

Furthermore,…