Deputies’ emails to remain secret

Sunday 11 September 2016

Jersey’s Freedom of Information department has turned down a request to publish the emails between Deputies Sam Mezec, Montfort Tadier, and Geoff Southern between Monday 1st August and Monday 22nd August.

The department says, “...individual States members are not covered by the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 [and] Members do not have any obligations under the Law and are not listed as a scheduled public authority.”

In its response it goes on to say: “as this is not a request for correspondence between States Members and a scheduled public authority, this information is not held.”

To help enquirers with future requests the department has highlighted the Information Commissioner’s guidelines for making Freedom of Information requests.

In the guidelines the Commissioner notes enquirers only have the right to access official information held by a so-called SPA – scheduled public authority – these are States departments and agencies listed under Schedule 1 of the law, and include the States Assembly including the States Greffe; a Minister, a committee or other body established by resolution of the States or by or in accordance with standing orders of the States Assembly; a department established on behalf of the States; the Judicial Greffe; the Viscount’s Department; Andium Homes Limited, registered on 13th May 2014 under registration number 115713; the States of Jersey Police Force; and a Parish (effective from 1st September, 2015).

The guidelines also note other things you shouldn’t do if you want your question answered. These include using offensive or threatening language in your request; using a request as a way of ‘scoring points’ against a SPA; sending a ‘catch-all’ request for information when you aren’t sure what specific documents to ask for; and disrupting an SPA by the sheer weight of requests or the volume of information requested.

Earlier this year the department did release all the email correspondence between Mike King, ED Chief Executive, and Wayne Gallichan, of Locate Jersey; and between Mike King, ED Chief Executive and ED Minister Lyndon Farnham, regarding a working trip to South Africa.