Three Freedom of Information requests from the Access to Justice Action Group have been refused by the Ministry of Justice.
AJAG requested details of the Regulatory Policy Committee response to the Jackson implementation plan; for the documents and correspondence between the MoJ and the RPC about Jackson implementation; and for the full data set on which the Impact Assessment for the implementation plan was based.
AJAG co-ordinator Andrew Dismore said: “It is disgraceful that the MoJ have refused to comply with our requests.
“We had a high level leak that the RPC had told the MoJ the impact assessments accompanying the Jackson implementation plan were “not fit for purpose” and had been given a “red card” just before the policy was announced in Parliament.
“Any objective commentator, on reading the Impact Assessment, could only have come to the same conclusion, as it has practically no figures in it at all, and the few that are there are easily challenged. The Impact Assessment is full of internal inconsistencies, too.
“Our FoI requests were aimed at putting this into the public domain. The MoJ have replied, to say that the policy is still under development, and thus exempt and that the data was confidential. That is a rather bizarre position, as the Justice Secretary was very forthright in his statement to the Commons, that implementing Jackson was settled policy. Moreover, the data we seek could easily have been anonymised.
“If the government are having second thoughts, that is to be welcomed, but everything that comes out of the government suggest otherwise.
“We will have to see what is in the Bill when it comes out shortly, to test their heavy handed blanket refusal to comply with our reasonable request.”
Medico-Legal News Source: PostOnline
