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Archived Press Releases 2009 8th July 2009

Official Information Act a Toothless Tiger

(8th July 2009)

The grandfather of a man murdered in cold blood by four men in 2007 recently made an Official Information Act request to the Ministry of Justice on the number of prior convictions his grandson's killers had.. His request was turned down, under the flimsy pretext of "protecting the privacy of natural persons".

Peter Jenkins, Sensible Sentencing Trust webmaster considers this to be an outrage that makes a mockery of the whole idea of the Official Information Act. Turning down such a request where there is a clear public interest sets an extremely ominous precedent for openess and transparency in a democracy.

"Protecting the privacy of natural persons" as a reason for withholding information from the public is not only so vague as to be meaningless, but could be used to conceal a multitude of sins. "Personal privacy" could be cited as a reason by politicians, or other public servants to keep all sorts of information hidden. If OIA requests can be turned down on such grounds then why even bother to have the Official Information Act in the first place.

Where a compelling reason for privacy exists, for instance with personal bank account details or residential adresses, then turning down an OIA request would be understandable. However it is difficult to comprehend what harm could befall the offenders concerned from having this information released to the grandfather of the victim, especially given that they are all serving time anyway.

But the ultimate irony is that he was able to find the information he wanted on the Trust's own Offender Database - meaning that it was already publically available and had been for some time, not only on the Trust database but in the media as well, making the denial of his Official Information Act request even more absurd.

The public should have access to this information. Even more so, the family of the victim most certainly should have access to it, unless some very compelling reason exists for withholding it, for instance national security, which is unlikely in such a case to say the least. The personal privacy of convicted violent or sexual offenders does not constitute a compelling reason for turning down an Official Information Act request in our view.

Regards,

Peter Jenkins
Auckland Central Spokesman and webmaster,
Sensible Sentencing Trust.
mobile 0274 338562