Price and Nominal Defendant

Application number:
1997 S0097
Decision date:
Wednesday, Nov 24, 1999

Price and Nominal Defendant
(1997 S0097, 24 November 1999) 

The Information Commissioner found that the applicant was entitled to obtain access, under s.30(1)(e) of the FOI Act, to a written document which the agency advised could be created by interrogation of a computer database, subject to payment of the reasonable costs that would be incurred by the agency in creating such a document, including the cost of engaging an external technical consultant. 

The Information Commissioner concluded that the agency was otherwise entitled to refuse to deal with parts of the applicant's FOI access application under s.28(2) of the FOI Act.  Applying the principles discussed in Price and Nominal Defendant (1999) 5 QAR 80, the Information Commissioner decided that some documents held by the respondent's solicitors were 'documents of the agency', as defined in s.7, and so were subject to the application of the FOI Act. 

However, the Information Commissioner found that those documents, and the other matter remaining in issue, qualified for legal professional privilege and were exempt under s.43(1) of the FOI Act, except for a small amount of matter that the Information Commissioner determined was exempt under s.44(1) of the FOI Act.