Legal professionals for former senator Rex Patrick have argued a decide was incorrect to search out the delays in freedom of knowledge claims weren’t unreasonable.
Mr Patrick final 12 months took the Australian Info Commissioner to the Federal Courtroom over his FOI delays, claiming he waited greater than three years for a call on his requests.
He hunted for the court docket to look at how lengthy it takes the commissioner to make selections and to stipulate what was an unreasonable delay.
There is no such thing as a authorized obligation for the commissioner to achieve a call inside a particular time frame.
Justice Michael Wheelahan in Might discovered the commissioner had restricted assets to undertake the quantity of critiques earlier than her and the delays have been as a result of an “unquestionable scarcity of assets”.
The justice mentioned it could be inappropriate for the court docket to guage the commissioner’s workload, assess her priorities or decide how she ought to finest handle these restricted assets.
Mr Patrick’s case would additionally contain “inappropriate judicial interference with the decisional freedom of an govt physique”, Justice Wheelahan mentioned.
Mr Patrick on Monday appealed the choice earlier than the total Federal Courtroom, along with his barrister Stephen McDonald SC arguing Justice Wheelahan reached the incorrect conclusion.
Mr McDonald mentioned the years-long delays meant the fee was not finishing up its statutory capabilities and subsequently the delays have been unreasonable.
The shortage of enough assets may clarify the drawn out time frames however it shouldn’t make an in any other case unreasonable delay legally sound, Mr McDonald mentioned.
The commissioner’s barrister, Zoe Maud SC, informed the court docket Justice Wheelahan made the proper choice when discovering the delays weren’t unreasonable.
She mentioned it was open to the justice to contemplate the useful resource constraints and workload of the workplace when coming to his findings.
The complete court docket will hand down its choice at a later date.
Mr Patrick mentioned it was essential that Australians may scrutinise authorities and take part in democracy by FOI claims.
“Evidently transparency is a phrase that is solely shouted from opposition benches,” he informed AAP exterior of court docket.
“It is a damaged system. The federal government has to concentrate to it.”
