International Law

OGC High Court Appeal against FOIA disclosure of ID Cards Programme Gateway Reviews now set to start this Monday 3rd March 2008

Why is the Government wasting public money on this High Court Appeal, which they must surely lose, and then be forced to comply with the rulings of both the Information Commissioner and of the Information Tribunal, to fully disclose to the public, the now out of date Home Office Identity Cards Programme early Gateway Reviews ?

All the possible legal arguments were gone into in exhaustive detail, by the barristers and FOIA legal professors, during the 4 day Information Tribunal hearing back in March 2007, which ruled in favour of full disclosure.

The Office of Government Commerce have emailed to say that the High Court date for their appeal against the decision of the Information Tribunal ordering the full publication of the Home Office Identity Cards Programme early Gateway Review reports, has now been brought forward by a day, and is set to start a 3 day hearing this coming for Monday 3rd March 2008 at 10:00am, at the Royal Courts of Justice, in the Strand, (Court number still to be decided).

Our initial Freedom of Information Act 2000 request for this information was made in January 2005, when the Act came fully into force i.e. over 3 years and 2 months ago ! See the history of this deliberate delay and lack of transparency, on a topic of huge public interest at our OGC Gateway Reviews FOIA request archive

Full post as published by Spy Blog on February 27, 2008 (boomark / email).