Just a quick overview of the latest Decision Notices from the Information Commissioner. There have only been a few since our previous update last month:
- Mr S Sugar - Jurisdiction. (To do with a request for information made by Mr Sugar to the BBC). The issue was whether or not a letter issued by the Information Tribunal was a decision notice. If it was then the Information Tribunal had jurisdiction to deal with Mr Sugar's challenge to the letter. If it was not, Mr Sugar would have to seek judicial review of the letter in the High Court. Decision: The letter was a decision notice, and said it would have been strange if Parliament had intended that issues over the letter could only be decided by judicial review. The BBC was a public authority for the purposes of the Act.
- Mr S Sugar - Derogation. (The same Mr Sugar as the previous decision notice - to do with the same request for information). Mr Sugar had requested a copy of the Balen Report from the BBC. The report was about the BBC's coverage of events in the Middle East. The BBC argued that the report was exempt from disclosure under the Act because it was being held for purposes of journalism - a specific exemption that the BBC has under Part VI of Schedule 1 of the Act. The Act doesn't define "journalism". Decision: The BBC could not withhold the Balen Report from disclosure because it wasn't being held for the purposes of journalism. The Tribunal invited the parties to suggest, within 20 days, how Mr Sugar's request should be dealt with following this decision.
- Mr G Marlow. The Tribunal had declined to issue a decision notice to Mr Marlow on the same subject matter in December 2005. The subject was a request by Mr Marlow for information from Melton Borough Council which he alleged the Council had failed to comply with. Decision: The Tribunal replaced the previous decision notice with a new one, in which it found that the Council had complied with Mr Marlow's request by providing information in response to it.
You can go to Decision Notices direct from IMPACT - see the bottom of the right hand column of the blog.
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