Information Commissioner's Office

Ministry of Justice

21 January 2016, Central government

The complainant made a three part request about General Civil Restraint Orders (‘GCROs’) issued by the Court of Appeal over a specified time period. The Ministry of Justice (the ‘MOJ’) responded to him on three separate occasions, but ultimately refused to provide the information requested in part one of the request citing section 40(2) (personal information) of FOIA. It relied on section 21 (information accessible to applicant by other means) in response to part two for ‘live’ GRCOs and section 40(2) for those which had expired. For part three of the request, the MOJ provided a discretionary response outside of FOIA. The Commissioner’s decision is that the MOJ has provided inaccurate and misleading information in relation to part one. He finds that sections 21 and 40(2) are not engaged in relation to the names of the judges and that section 40(2) is not engaged in relation to some names of the individuals in part two. He also finds that the MOJ did not respond to part three of the request in accordance with FOIA. He does uphold the MOJ’s reliance on section 21 in relation to the names of individuals with GCROs from the Court of Appeal which are currently in force. He requires the MOJ to issue a fresh response as set out in the ‘steps’ in the decision notice.

FOI 21: Partly upheld FOI 40: Upheld