A Language you Understand

Posted on | by James Goudie KC

EU Justice Ministers have agreed on a “Letter of Rights” proposed by the Commission.  Once voted upon by the European Parliament, this will provide that suspects will have to be informed in writing of their rights in a language they understand.  Anyone arrested, or the subject of a European Arrest Warrant, will have to be given, whether they ask for it or not, and translated if necessary, the Letter of Rights, listing their basic rights, in simple, everyday language, ie their rights to a lawyer, to be informed of the charge, to interpretation and translation, and to be brought promptly before a Court following arrest, and giving practical details. The Lisbon Treaty enables the EU to adopt measures to strengthen the rights of EU citizens, in line with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, particularly the rights of individuals in criminal procedures. The right to a fair trial and defence are set out in Articles 47 and 48 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights; as well as in Article 6 of the ECHR.

James Goudie QC

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Posted on | by James Goudie KC

The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill (the Bill), introduced in the House of Commons on 30 November 2010, is replete with requirements for the provision of information.  The Bill is primarily, but by no means exclusively, concerned with police reform.  Part 1 of the Bill contains provisions to abolish police authorities (excluding the City of London) and replace them with directly elected Police and Crime Commissioners for each police force outside London, and the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime for the Metropolitan Police.  Police and Crime Commissioners will be responsible for holding the chief constable of their police force to account for the full range of their responsibilities. The chief constable will retain responsibility for the direction and control of the police force. Part 1also contains provisions for establishing Police and Crime Panels for each police area. The role of the Police and Crime Panel will be to advise and scrutinise the work of the police and crime commissioner.

Part 1 states the basic duties of a police and crime commissioner. These include publishing a police and crime plan, setting the local police and crime objectives, and setting the local precept and annual force budget (including contingency reserves) in discussion with the chief constable. Provisions are also included in Part 1 for police and crime commissioners to appoint, suspend and dismiss the chief constable of their police force. The appointment of all other officers will remain a matter for the chief constable. Part 1 also contains provisions for the first and subsequent elections of police and crime commissioners.  Police and crime commissioners will hold office for four years and can only hold office for a maximum of two terms. The two terms need not be consecutive.

Clause 11 of the Bill imposes obligations on a police and crime commissioner and the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime in relation to the publication of information. Subsections (1) and (6) allow the Secretary of State to specify by order information which a police and crime commissioner and the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime must publish, and also to specify the time and manner of publication. It is anticipated that this power will be used to ensure the publication of standard information as to numbers of staff and the rates of their pay, items of expenditure above a specified monetary limit, and any gifts or loans received. Subsection (2) requires a police and crime commissioner and the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime to publish such further information as is necessary to allow local people to assess the performance of the body itself and also that of the chief officer of police for the police area (either the chief constable or, in the metropolitan police district, the Commissioner).

Clause 12 requires a police and crime commissioner and the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime to produce an annual report.  Subsection (1) requires an annual report to show, in respect of the financial year in question, how the police and crime commissioner or the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime has carried out his functions and the progress made in meeting the objectives in the police and crime plan. Subsections (2) to (5) make provision for the police and crime panel to scrutinise the annual report. Subsections (6) and (7) require a police and crime commissioner and the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime to publish each annual report in such manner as he thinks fit. Subsection (8) allows a police and crime commissioner and the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime to produce reports other than the annual report.

Clause 13 allows a police and crime panel to require its police and crime commissioner or (in the case of the metropolitan police district, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime) to provide it with information.  Subsection (1) requires a police and crime commissioner or the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime to provide the police and crime panel with any information they reasonably require in order to carry out their duties. Subsection (2) excludes from the requirement under subsection (1) information which, in the view of the chief constable it would be harmful to disclose for various reasons set out in the subsection. This does not prevent the disclosure of the information to the police and crime panel; it means that the police and crime commissioner or the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime is not required to disclose it.

Clause 88 makes the chief inspector of constabulary (and thus the inspectors) subject to the duties under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to confirm that requested information is held, and to provide it.

James Goudie QC

PARTIES MAY APPEAL AGAINST DECISION NOTICES IN THEIR FAVOUR

Posted on | by Robin Hopkins

Shepard v IC and West Sussex County Council (GIA/1681/2010) involved the Commissioner upholding the appellant’s complaint against the local authority, and issuing a decision notice in his favour. That notice required the authority to search for specified information and to provide it to the Claimant if found. The authority informed the appellant that its search had been fruitless. Apparently therefore, it had complied with the decision notice, but the appellant received no information.

At first instance, his appeal failed, partly on the grounds of the well-established principle that a successful party should not be permitted to bring an appeal. The Upper Tribunal disagreed, and granted permission to appeal, observing that the aforementioned principle “surely relates to judicial decisions by courts and tribunals; it does not necessarily apply to decisions by administrative first-instance decision-makers or independent office-holders”.

Nor was the wording of FOIA itself a barrier to such appeals: section 57(1) expressly confers a right of appeal on both parties, and not simply “the losing party”. Furthermore, both the steps prescribed in a decision notice and the timing of such steps are matters of discretion for the Commissioner. Unlike the enforcement of a decision notice, such questions of discretion are within the Tribunal’s jurisdiction.

It is not clear, however, whether a challenge to a first-instance Tribunal’s refusal to entertain an appeal lies by way of an appeal to the Upper Tribunal or by way of judicial review. A test case (combined references of CH/1758/2009 and JR/2204/2009) will determine this question shortly. In the present case, the Upper Tribunal therefore granted permission to apply for judicial review as a precaution.

TRIBUNAL’S STRIKE-OUT OF ‘ACADEMIC’ APPEALS

Posted on | by Robin Hopkins

In Edwards v IC and the Ministry of Defence (EA/2010/0056), the Tribunal has exercised its power to strike out a party’s case under Tribunal Procedure (First-Tier Tribunal) (GRC) Rules 2009. This was done partly on a lack of reasonable prospects of success, and partly on jurisdictional grounds: some of the appellant’s grounds of complaint invited the Tribunal to “monitor or influence” the way in which the Commissioner had carried out his statutory duties, or the way in which the public authority had done so. The Tribunal has no jurisdiction over such matters. 

Perhaps more interestingly, this was a case where the appeal was in effect academic, as the requested material had already been given to the appellant. The grounds on which a Tribunal may strike out an appeal are contained in rule 8(3) of the 2009 Rules: lack of reasonable prospect of success, non-compliance with an order or failure to co-operate with the Tribunal “to such an extent that the Tribunal cannot deal with the proceedings fairly and justly”.

At first glance, it is not obvious how any of those three exhaustive categories accommodate appeals which have become academic due to events post-dating the handling of the relevant request. The Tribunal in Edwards has provided its answer. The key provision is rule 8(3)(b), which concerns the fair and just dealing with proceedings. By rule 2(2) of the 2009 Rules, this includes considerations of proportionality, costs and resources. Rule 5 empowers the Tribunal to regulate its own procedure. In particular, rule 5(2) allows it to give a direction in relation to the conduct or disposal of proceedings at any time.

The combination of rules 2 and 5 can therefore suffice to engage rule 8(3)(b) and support a strike-out even where questions of jurisdiction or lack of reasonable prospects of success are not in play.

BACKDOOR ATTEMPT TO OBTAIN IRAQ WAR CABINET MINUTES FAILS

Posted on | by Robin Hopkins

The minutes of the Cabinet meetings at which it was decided to go to war in Iraq have resurfaced for consideration by the Tribunal. First time round, the Tribunal agreed with the Commissioner that the minutes should be released, but the final word went to Jack Straw, by means of a ministerial veto – which was not subject to a judicial review challenge – issued under section 53 FOIA.

The requester in that case subsequently sought a backdoor route to the minutes, by requesting them under FOIA from the ICO itself. He also sought “background papers which show the processes of thought behind the Information Commissioner’s conclusion that the Cabinet minutes in question should be disclosed”. The ICO did not hold the minutes themselves, but it did hold some handwritten notes made by the then Commissioner, Richard Thomas, and by an ICO caseworker when visiting the Cabinet Office to inspect the minutes. It also held a confidential annex to the Decision Notice, which fell within the veto. All of these he refused to disclose.

The usual FOIA complaints and appeals process ensued, with the Commissioner issuing a decision notice in respect of his own refusal, and then defending that notice before the Tribunal in Lamb v IC (EA/2009/0108).

The basis of the refusal was section 44 FOIA, which provides that information is exempt if its disclosure is “prohibited by or under any enactment”. The Commissioner relied for the latter on section 59 of the DPA, which says that the Commissioner may not disclose information he obtained under the auspices of the Act “unless the disclosure is made with lawful authority”, which arises where “having regard to the rights and freedoms or legitimate interests of any person, the disclosure is necessary in the public interest”.

As the Tribunal accepted, this is a much higher threshold than the usual public interest test under FOIA: under section 59, there is effectively a presumption against disclosure.

The Tribunal was satisfied that this information was “obtained from” the Cabinet Office, notwithstanding the Appellant’s challenge on that point.

It also agreed with the Commissioner’s application of section 59. Much of the Appellant’s argument turned on the importance of the material he sought. This, said the Tribunal, overlooked the point that the Commissioner had already decided in the Appellant’s favour concerning the Cabinet minutes which he sought. The Tribunal also commented that:

“It is no part of the freedom of information regime to provide a mechanism by which a party who prosecuted a successful complaint to the Information Commissioner in the past may have his or her winning margin reassessed in the light of events subsequent to the date of the original victory”.

The Tribunal did not comment on whether the mere existence of the veto gave rise to the engagement or effectiveness of section 59. Nor did it speculate as to the circumstances in which reliance on section 59 could be defeated – although the wording of that section clearly envisaged this prospect.

COST OF COMPLYING WITH A REQUEST: NO DUTY TO SEARCH UP TO THE COST LIMIT

Posted on | by Robin Hopkins

Cooksey v ICO and Chief Officer of Greater Manchester Police (EA/20100113) is the Information Tribunal’s latest application of the ‘cost of compliance’ “exemption” at section 12 of FOIA.

The case concerned a request in six severable parts for information concerning documents from a murder investigation undertaken between1992 and 1995. The material from that investigation was stored in entirely disorganised boxes – a state of affairs which the Tribunal found “astonishing”. This disorganisation gave rise to the engagement of section 12. Notably, the Commissioner had examined a sample of the material and produced his own cost estimate which was lower than that advanced by the public authority. The Tribunal was satisfied that section 12 was engaged on the basis of the Commissioner’s estimate – but not that of the public authority.

The Appellant argued that the boxes should have been searched up to the costs limit, given that any information found in relation to her request, even if only partial, would be useful. The Tribunal rejected this approach to section 12: if the costs limit is engaged, the effect of section 12 is to disapply altogether the duty to comply with the information request.

The Tribunal also found that the margin of difference between the compliance estimate and the costs limit is a relevant consideration “in these circumstances”.

Interestingly, the Tribunal further noted that the boxes had been numbered after receipt of the request for information, for purposes of transportation. This, the Tribunal suggested, constituted a change in the way that information was organised which might allow for differently constituted information requests to be made, relying on the box numbers as a way of targeting those requests.