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Sunday, November 11, 2012

Australia's leading FOI cases?

Right2info an international website has published a database of summaries of a selection of national and regional court judgments on the right to information that "illustrate how the courts all over the world interpret and view the right of access to information." I wasn't involved in any input. The one Australian case listed in the 55 summarised is a rather obscure Victorian tribunal decision that hardly lives up to the criterion, to "provide organizations and individuals intending to litigate with a set of good arguments to make their case." Right2info invites contributions of additional cases, case summaries and briefs to make the collection interesting and useful.

So with the 30th anniversary of the Commonwealth Freedom of Information Act looming on 1 December, how about our list of the 10 leading Australian cases (federal, state, territory, and court/tribunal/commissioner) based on the significance of the contribution to FOI/RTI etc jurisprudence, and in extending as far as possible the right of access to information?

Nominations now open and to close on 25 November. 

Send  in the form of a comment on this blog or to me at peter.timmins1@gmail.com, the case name, url if available and a short statement of the reasons for your nomination or nominations.

While we're at we'll also entertain nominations for decisions that represented a significant setback to the achievement of that objective.

Promise to consult a small and selective brains trust before publishing my definitive list.
  
  

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