Freedom of Information: A Comparative Legal Survey - Federation of ...

U nited Kingdom
Introduction
The United Kingdom does not have a constitutional bill of rights and the right to information does not fi nd
constitutional expression. The Human Rights Act 1998, which, although formally simply an ordinary piece
of legislation, has some form of special status, incorporates the guarantee of freedom of expression found
in the European Convention on Human Rights. However, the European Court of Human Rights has refused
to fi nd a right to access information held by public bodies as part of the generally guarantee of freedom of
expression, 283 and it is most unlikely that British courts would interpret this right any more expansively.
The United Kingdom presents an interesting conundrum on the right to information, contrasting a vibrant
media operating in an atmosphere of relatively robust respect for freedom of expression with a government
which has traditionally been extremely secretive. This explains the odd situation whereby the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 (RTI Law) was not passed in the United Kingdom until November 2000, 284 long after
most established democracies had adopted such a law, and even then did not come fully into force until
January 2005.
This late adoption of a right to information law was despite a long campaign by local civil society groups,
which had been pushing for a law for decades. An attempt to have a law adopted through the introduction
of a private members bill in 1978 failed and, despite ‘peer group’ countries like Australia, Canada and
New Zealand all passing right to information laws in the early 1980s, the British government refused to
do so. When the Labour party came to power in 1997, after a long period of Conservative rule, one of its
election promises was to adopt right to information legislation, and this was done in due course in 2000.
In October 2001, shortly after the attacks of 11 September in the United States, the government delayed
implementation of key elements of the Law until January 2005.
The RTI Law of the United Kingdom includes good process guarantees and a broad scope of application,
along with a number of innovative promotional measures. For example, it introduces the idea of a publication
scheme for proactive publication, providing a fl exible tool for increasing the scope of information subject to
disclosure over time. At the same time, it is seriously undermined by a very extensive regime of exceptions.
These are not only broad on their face but many lack any harm test and are not subject to a public interest
override.
The Right of Access
The fi rst provision in the United Kingdom’s RTI Law, section 1(1), provides that any person “making a
request for information to a public authority is entitled” to be informed whether or not the body holds the
information and, if it does, to have the information “communicated” to him or her. The right is made subject
to a number of other provisions in the Law, including:
any reasonable request by the body for further information in order to identify and locate the
information;
the regime of exceptions;
the payment of any fees; and
an exception for vexatious or repeated requests (sections 1(2) and (3)).
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