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A weighty court judgment has bolstered a woman's case to view secret information held by the Catholic Church about her.
The unnamed woman wants to find out what her husband said about her in the process of getting their marriage annulled through the church.
The church has said it is not required to reveal that, and the court ruling may now have considerable ramifications for how it operates.
The woman initially went to the Privacy Commissioner for help in getting the information, which in turn referred the case to the Human Rights Review Tribunal to make a finding.
The tribunal then went to the High Court in Auckland for a ruling on the legality of the church's stance.
Central to the court case was whether the church's Catholic Tribunal, which hears annulment proceedings, could be considered a tribunal with judicial functions as defined in the Privacy Act, and therefore entitled to withhold information.
Justice Mark Cooper ruled it was not, which opens the way for further action requiring the church to hand over the information the woman seeks.
The church did not want to comment yesterday, saying its lawyers were still studying the findings.
In his judgment, Justice Cooper said he accepted that the sacrament of marriage, and steps taken to dissolve a marriage, were matters "central to the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church".
But he was not convinced it could be damaging to allow greater circulation of information held on these matters.
"I find it difficult to see how making available to an individual information that she has requested about herself can raise any implications which might affect religious belief ... or any issue of church doctrine."
The woman's case will now go back to the Human Rights Review Tribunal. The tribunal has the power to rule that information be made available.
