The right to access information under the Freedom of Information Act has now been in force for over a month. Under the Act, requests for information must be answered within 20 days- given that the Act has now been in force for over 5 weeks, it is well to take stock of how the first wave of requests have fared.
Initial indications are that the new rights will not create a culture of disclosure, that it will not eradicate the disease of ‘secrecy’. Some information has been released and will continue to be released. The government will claim that the Act has been a success.
The biggest test for the Act was whether the government would release the full text of the Attorney General’s advice about the legality of the Iraq war. As many had predicted, the government has refused to do so, claiming that the information was legally privileged and therefore exempt under the Act. This is a dishonest argument. No one can deny that lawyers should be able to communicate openly and freely with their clients. But in this case the government chose to summarise the advice. Presumably the summary included the bits that emboldened the government’s case. Given that the war was fought on a false pretext, the public is entitled to know what reservations that advice contained.
That is not the only example of the culture of secrecy continuing unhindered. There are many examples of the 20 day limit not being met without a good reason. Many had predicted that the public sector would be inundated with a torrent of requests for- in many cases spurious- information. This has not happened and the response to the Act is therefore all the more disappointing.
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