A slew of Freedom of Information requests made to Cayman’s Legal Department have been determined to be ‘vexatious’ due to the sheer volume of records sought.
In her decision denying the applicant access to the records, Information Commissioner Jennifer Dilbert indicated that each separate request made in one week between January and February “could be seen to have serious purpose or value”.
“However, it is the pattern and quantity of the requests and the negative effect that dealing with them all would have on a public authority that must be considered,” Mrs. Dilbert wrote. “Looked at in isolation, none of the requests on their own would likely be found to be vexatious.”
Cayman’s Freedom of Information Law (2007) allows public agencies to deny requests for information if they are determined to be repetitive or vexatious under the law.
The commissioner’s decision in this case involved two requests for information. The first asked for records of cases prosecuted personally by the country’s solicitor general, cases ruled on by the solicitor general and the number of days the solicitor general was off island on official business for the years 2008, 2009 and 2010. The same information was requested for the attorney general, except for cases prosecuted personally. The applicant also asked for “members of the public received by the attorney general on official business” during ‘08, ‘09, and ‘10.
A second set of requests, made about a week later, sought to obtain information on a number of different issues from the Legal Department:
The number of civil case files handled by the Legal Department for 2007, 2008, and 2009.
The number of civil case files handled by the nine civil division Crown counsels during 2010
The number of pending extradition requests from the attorney general and the country those requests came from.
The number of and names of convicted individuals who are wanted and absconded from the Cayman Islands.
Mrs. Dilbert, in considering the requests, said they could be characterised as “obsessive” and agreed with the Legal Department that the volume and frequency of the requests were “manifestly unreasonable”.
“I can see where the staff of the [Portfolio of Legal Affairs] could have found the pattern of requests from this applicant to be distressing,” she said. “Applicants should use the FOI [Law] responsibly, and to abuse the rights given under the law brings the law into disrepute, and undermines the operation of the law for the benefit of others.”
The information commissioner also pointed out that the Legal Department faces the same trouble many government departments have seen with FOI; short staffing. The Legal Department’s information manager is a lawyer who has “many other pressing duties in an extremely busy department”, she said.
“It would not be reasonable, especially in this time of financial constraints, to require that a valuable member of staff be consigned solely to respond to a barrage of requests, and this was not the intention of the FOI Law.”
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