Posts Tagged ‘rti litigation’
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18 April 2014
Virginia Judge Exempts Academic Work from FOIA
The Virginia state Supreme Court ruled April 17 that emails and unpublished research by a university professor are proprietary records dealing with scholarly research and therefore exempt from disclosure under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. Skeptics of global warming, State Del. Robert Marshall (R-Prince William) and the American Tradition Institute, had sought records from […]
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14 April 2014
Access Info Appeals Spanish Ruling in Human Rights Court
Access Info Europe April 14 appealed to the European Court of Human Rights following an unsuccessful seven-year legal battle to obtain information from Spain’s Ministry of Justice. Spain’s Constitutional Court in 2013 rejected an Access Info appeal based on the freedom of expression provisions of the Constitution (Article 20.1.a) and Article 10 of the European […]
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4 April 2014
Argentine Court Rules for Access Over Privacy
The Supreme Court of Justice in Argentina has ordered the Ministry of Social Development to release information about persons who receive social welfare payments. The case was won by CIPPEC (Centro de Implementación de Políticas Públicas para la Equidad y el Crecimiento – the Centre for the Implementation of Public Policies Promoting Equity and Growth), an Argentine nongovernmental […]
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4 April 2014
Mexican court orders a new review of massacre
By Michael Evans and Jesse Franzblau The following article was published March 28, 2014 in Migration Declassified, a project of the National Security Archive. In a case that with important ramifications both for access to information and for human rights investigations in Mexico, a federal judge declared last week that the country’s information commissioners can and should […]
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4 April 2014
Masacre de San Fernando: los familiares tienen derecho a saber por qué
Por Michael Evans y Jesse Franzblau Este artículo fue publicado 28 de marzo 2014 en Animal Político. En un caso de suma importancia con respecto al acceso a la información e investigaciones sobre derechos humanos en México, un juez federal declaró la semana pasada que los comisionados de IFAI pueden y están obligados determinar si […]
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28 March 2014
Secrecy Rules in EU Despite European Court Judgment
By Staffan Dahllöf This article first appeared March 26 in Wobbing EU. EU ministers have postponed implementing a judgement on transparency and rejected disclosing alternatives discussed – and leaked. Six member states vote against secrecy. The European Ombudsman has been asked to step in. More than five months have gone since the European Court of Justice in […]
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26 March 2014
UK Court Finds Common Law Right to Information
This report appeared in the Press Gazette on March 26, 2014. It is reprinted with permission. A related analysis article is here. For additional commentary, see posting by David Hart on the UK Human Rights Blog. Media lawyers have welcomed an “important development” in the right to access information from public authorities, after a seven-year legal […]
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17 March 2014
Canadian Commissioner Loses Case Over Long Delay
A Canadian judge has decided the law does not permit her to sanction a government agency for a three-year delay in responding to a request. The Canadian Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault took the National Defence ministry to court for delays in handling a Dec. 9, 2010, request for documents about a contract and communications related […]
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17 March 2014
Court Critical of CIA Refusal to Provide Softcopy Records
By Steven Aftergood This article appeared March 17 in Secrecy News Blog. Even when the Central Intelligence Agency possesses a releasable document in a softcopy format, the Agency typically refuses to release the softcopy version in response to Freedom of Information Act requests, and insists on providing a hardcopy version of the document instead. A […]
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12 March 2014
UK Court Rejects Secrecy for Prince Charles’ Letters
The Court of Appeal in the United Kingdom March 12 ruled that the Attorney General unlawfully vetoed disclosure of Prince Charles’ letters to government ministers. The three judge panel’s decision says the veto was incompatible with European Union environmental law. The Guardian newspaper nine years ago requested the correspondence sent to various government agencies in […]
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10 March 2014
FOI Notes: India, US, Nepal, OGP, Research, UK, Fellowship
India: The Ministry of Personnel and Training has issued a Volume 1 of a “Compendium of Best Practices on RTI.” including The chapter titles are: SARATHI (System of Assisting Residents And Tourists through Helpline Information), RTI Library, Transparency Desk, RTI Online, Central Monitoring Mechanism, Pro-Active Disclosure, Jaankari, MCA21, Information Kiosks, Chakravyuh, Digitization and RTI Foundation […]
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4 March 2014
Freedom of Information in Ireland: changing of the guard
By Tony Lowes Lowes is a Director of Friends of the Irish Environment In what is a serious blow to Freedom of Information in Ireland, the newly appointed Information Commission and Ombudsman Peter Tyndall has withdrawn his predecessor’s appeal to the Supreme Court against a High Court judgment that the constitutional right to cabinet confidentiality […]
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21 February 2014
EU Court Rules for ECB, Against Bloomberg News
The European Union Court of Justice in a Feb. 6 decision rejected an appeal of a lower court decision saying the European Central Bank does not need to disclose its reports on how Greece used derivatives to hide its debt. The suit was brought in December 2010 by Bloomberg News. “European taxpayers, bearing the cost of […]
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14 February 2014
`Insatiable’ Desire to Suppress Information in Malaysia
By Charles Santiago Santiago is a member of the Malaysian Parliament. This article first appeared Feb. 13 in The Malaysian Chronicle. After an intense fight of eight years, we lost the battle. The Federal Court dismissed our application for a judicial review of the Court of Appeal’s decision from accessing the concession agreement of water […]
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12 February 2014
CIC Orders Six Parties to Comply With RTI Act
India’s Central Information Commission Feb. 7 asked the six national parties to explain what they have done to fulfill a June 2013 CIC for them to comply with the Right to Information Act. The Commission asked the parties to provide details of their actions within four weeks, according to media reports such as one in […]
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7 February 2014
EU Council Obstructs Ruling on Transparency
By Staffan Dahllöf This article first appeared in Wobbing EU on Feb. 7. Dahllöf is a freelancer who regularly contributes to the website Wobbing EU. (FreedomInfo.org reported on the referenced October ruling.) The Council of the EU has classified its own reaction to a landmark ruling on transparency by the EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg. […]
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5 February 2014
Top Chilean Court Denies Access to Attorney Names
The Chilean Supreme Court has declared as proprietary information the names of the lawyers who represented Chile in Court of International Justice in The Hague in a case involving a maritime claim by Peru. The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision (in Spanish) also denied access to information about fees paid to the lawyers. In doing so, […]
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22 January 2014
EU Ombudsman Supports Disclosure of Legal Document
The European Ombudsman has ruled that the European Council should not have denied access to a document drawn up in the context of negotiations between EU member states with an eye to finding arrangements for ensuring compliance with the balanced budget rule contained in the Fiscal Compact Treaty. “By failing to justify why it cannot […]
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22 January 2014
ECtHR extends case law on information on health risks
By Lieselot Verdonck Lieselot is a Ph.D. candidate at the Human Rights Centre, Faculty of Law of Ghent University. More information on the author can be found here. This article first appeared Jan. 20 on the blog Strasbourg Observer, which comments on developments in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights Over […]
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2 December 2013
European Court Rules in Favor of Austrian NGO
The European Court of Human Rights held Nov. 28 that an Austrian government body’s refusal to grant an Austrian nongovernmental organization access to official documents was unjustified. The majority ruling came in the case of Österreichische Vereinigung zur Erhaltung, Stärkung und Schaffung eines wirtschaftlich gesunden land- und forstwirtschaftlichen Grundbesitzes v. Austria (application no. 39534/07). The […]