Correlation of the right to personal privacy and the right to legal defense in the context of access to private information: search for balance of interests

The subject of this research is the legislation of the Russian Federation on personal information and other legally protected secrets, civil procedural legislation, as well as law enforcement practice, including explanation of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation and the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in the area of protection of personal information and the process of access to personal information, as well as other legally protected information. The goal of this research is to determine the problem pertaining to access to personal information at the stage of assessment of validity of claims an individual intending to pursue litigation. The main conclusion of the conducted study consists in articulation of a problem associated with the ability to access personal information at the stage of assessment of validity of claims. The problem in question is not only relevant, which is confirmed by many instances in case law, but is also sparsely covered by researchers. This defines the scientific novelty of this paper, as well as dictated by objective complexity of the search for a solution to the problem in the context of balance of interests of counterpoising private parties: interests of an individual whose personal information is protected by law, and interests of an individual intending to gain access to this information for the purposes of pursuing litigation.