The Media Rights Agenda (MRA) has launched the “FOI Hall of
Shame” aimed at focusing attention on public officials and institutions
undermining the effectiveness of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, 2011
through their actions, decisions or utterances, reports ITRealms.
This came as Justice Doris Okuwobi of the Ikeja High Court
has been named the first inductee.
The Executive Director, MRA, Mr. Edetaen Ojo, told ITRealms in Lagos Tuesday decried that “six years after the Act was enacted into Law, it
has become clear that there is a concerted effort by some public officials and
institutions, cutting across all arms and all levels of government, to ensure
that it does not work and that it does not achieve its objectives. We intend to
call them out in the court of public opinion.”
In an accompanying press statement made available to
ITRealms, he said MRA has concluded plans to name weekly any public institution
or public official into the ‘FOI Hall of Shame.’
He said that those to be named would be a public institution
or public official who, by its, his or her action or inaction, decision, utterance
or in any other way is undermining or has undermined the effective
implementation of the FOI Act.
“We will provide ample justification for our decision
regarding such an institution or official” he said.
Ojo went on to explain the choice of Justice Okuwobi as the first
inductee into the FOI Hall of Shame, saying that her ruling on an FOI suit on
June 19, 2017 describing it as “one of the most ridiculous decisions ever given
by a court anywhere in the world.”
MRA boss stressed that the implication of the ruling is that
if a public institution ignores a freedom of information request by failing to
respond to it, it can never be sued, despite the clear provisions of the
Freedom of Information Act to the contrary.
Ojo explained that “On November 4, 2016, MRA made a freedom
of information request to the Ojodu Local Council Development Area, by a letter
with the subject: “Request for Records of Water Works Plans for Araromi Zion
Estate”. MRA asked the Council to
provide it with relevant information about the provision of government services
to a community in Ikeja, in the heart of Lagos, completely neglected by the
government and which enjoys no government service of any description. The
Council ignored the FOI request.
“On December 6, 2016, MRA filed an application at the Ikeja
Judicial Division of the Lagos State High Court seeking leave to compel the
Council to comply with the provisions of the FOI Act and provide MRA with the
information requested.
“The first outrage, as far as the Judiciary’s involvement in
this is concerned, is that although the FOI Act requires courts to deal with
such matters speedily, it took the court more than seven months just to list
and hear a simple motion exparte for leave.
“When Justice Okuwobi finally heard the application for
leave on June 19, 2017, in the face of the complaint and prayer for a
declaration that the failure and/or refusal by the Council to give MRA a
written notice that access to all or part of the information requested will not
be granted was a violation of the FOI Act, the judge held that MRA’s failure to
show evidence of a written notice by the Council denying it access to the
information was fatal to its case.
“It is also a matter of serious concern that although the
FOI Act gives public institutions seven days within which to respond to a request
for information and states clearly that where the institution fails to give
access to the information or record applied for within this time limit, the
institution is deemed to have refused to give access, Justice Okuwobi ruled: “I
will not speculate on the fact that there was a denial by the Respondent’s
failure to comply.”
“Finally, although the FOI Act gives public institutions
seven days to provide the information requested and requires an applicant who
has been denied access to information to approach the Court within 30 days
after the public institution denied or is deemed to have denied access to the
information, Justice Okuwobi held, more than seven months after MRA made its
request for the information, that the application to the court was “premature”
because the Council had not given MRA a written notice that it would not grant
access.
“In effect, the judge used the Council’s disregard of its
duties and obligations under the FOI Act, against MRA, the victim, which had
come before the court for redress.”
For Ojo, “It beats the imagination that a judge will condone
and actively encourage such an act of impunity by making it impossible for
those whose rights are so flagrantly and wantonly violated to approach the
courts to vindicate their rights. The Judgement does not only constitute a
deadly impediment to the effectiveness of the FOI Act, it also brings the
Judiciary to disrepute and diminishes citizens’ confidence in it.”
MRA insisted that it is on the basis of the foregoing, that
on Monday, July 3, 2017, MRA inducted Justice Doris Okuwobi of the Ikeja High
Court into the FOI Hall of Shame.
Uj. N. Dominic/GEE
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