Bill: Proposed Amendment to the Freedom of Information Act

[xXLordLyonXx]

Author: Lysander Lyon, MP
Sponsor: N/A
Type: Act of Parliament

A
BILL
TO
Reform the Freedom of Information Act​

1. Short Title
(a) This bill shall be referred to as the "Amendment to the Freedom of Information Act".
(b) This bill was authored by Lysander Lyon.

2. Definitions
(a) Section 2 shall be amended as follows:

(a) National security: The protection of the interests of Azalea Isles as a nation state from threats that may exist both externally and internally.
(b) Economic stability: The sustained flow of Azalea Isles’ resources in a manner that limits the growth of inflation, scarcity, or exploitation.
(c) Continuity of Government: The overall maintenance of the Government’s leadership and services as is necessary to fulfill the various duties of Government.
(i) This includes information related to active lawsuits, information that could reasonably weaken the Government’s ability to fulfill its duties, information related to potential or ongoing investigations, and other information that would compromise the ability to take action on a topic the Freedom of Information request is about.
(d) Private personal information: Any information whose release would undermine the reasonable expectation of privacy that the citizens of Azalea Isles enjoy.
(e) Narrow in scope: Freedom of Information Act requests must be narrow and targeted in scope. They must refer to a specific topic, within a specific and reasonable date range.
(i) Asking for all Ministry of Urban Development records since creation, or even from one term, is excessive. Asking for Ministry of Urban Development records on the average cost to build a bus stop, or a subway, is a narrow and specific topic. Asking for all Ministry of Urban Development records on LDZs is a specific topic, but the lack of a date range makes it too broad.

3. Petition Process
(a) Section 4 shall be amended as follows:

(a) Any citizen may open a support ticket with the relevant Ministry for the information they are requesting. If the citizen does not know which ministry to reach out to, they may open a ticket with any Ministry and the Ministers should help facilitate connection with the correct Ministry.
(b) Upon reviewing the request, the Ministry shall examine the request and determine the classification level of the information being requested. If they are unfamiliar with the classification level of the information being requested, they are encouraged to speak with other Ministers or legal counsel.
(c) The Minister may only refuse to share information which has a classification level of “Classified Information”. If the requested information has any other classification level, it must be shared with the citizen in a timely manner.Classified Information may not be shared in Freedom of Information requests.
(d) If parts of the information are unable to be shared but other parts can be shared, this should be made known to the petitioning citizen. If the citizen accepts this, the Minister can share partially redacted information, withholding or otherwise censoring anything which cannot be shared while sharing what can be shared.
(e) Ministers may reject Freedom of Information Requests for failing to be narrow in scope.
(f) Individuals are not subject to Freedom of Information requests; only ministries. The response provided by the ministry’s employees is the response provided; individuals may request additional clarity, but they cannot demand an answer from any specific employee.

4. Disputes
(a) Section 5 shall be amended as follows:

(a) In the event that the Government claims that a specific piece of information cannot be shared or is not narrow in scope, but the petitioning citizen disagrees, or if the petitioning citizen feels that their request is not being handled in a timely manner, they may file a suit in Court.
(i) The Ministry must be given at least one week to address the request, and depending on the size of the request, it may be longer before a Judge should consider a timely manner violated, with additional allowance for the fact that Ministries have regular operations to continue while attempting to fulfill FOI requests.
(b) The presiding Judge(s) will have the opportunity to review the withheld information and make a determination on the classification level of the information.
(c) If the Government disagrees with the Judge(s) determination, or feels that the Judge(s) lack clearance for the information at hand, they may appeal the decisioncase to a higher Court without providing the information to the Judge(s), only if any such higher Court exists. If no such Court exists, the presiding Judge(s) automatically have clearance to view the information and the decision they reach is final and may not be appealed.
(d) If the Judge(s) determine that the information should have been shared or was not shared in a timely manner, and if the appeals process has been exhausted, a trial shall commence for damages and the Government will be compelled to share the information with the petitioning citizen.
(e) If a lawsuit is filed over a request not being narrow in scope, the judicial authority should be thorough in ensuring the request is reasonable, relevant to the individual, and specific. Minister discretion should be acknowledged and respected by the Court, as how many records a request entails may vary from ministry to ministry, as will the extent of what would compromise the ministry’s internal workings. Requests that are not specific, relevant, or could weaken a ministry’s ability to perform its duties are not valid requests.

5. Damages
(a) Section 6 shall be amended as follows:

(a) If the Government is found in Court to be guilty of knowingly and willfully withholding information that a petitioning citizen has a lawful right to access, they may be ordered by the Courts to compensate such citizen no more than $10,000.
(i) Damages claimed by the Plaintiff should be proven.
(ii) Timely manner violations shall only warrant damages of up to $1,000.

6. Abuse
(a) A new section, Section 7, shall be created as follows:

7. Abuse
(a) In order to prevent frivolous Freedom of Information requests from slowing down the Government, individuals may submit no more than three free requests per month. They may pay $1,000 per request to submit up to an additional two, for five total, and after that they may not submit any additional requests until the next month begins.
(b) Requests that are made to get the transcript of a prior request will not count towards this limit.

Enactment: This Act comes into force immediately upon passage.