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ANNUAL REPORT 2014
However, the Ombudsman found that more information in the document had
to be considered subject to extraction than the two paragraphs to which the
Ministry of Justice had given access. The information concerned a paragraph
in which the party secretary made a number of statements. The Ombudsman
emphasised that the information had to be considered information about the
‘factual basis’ of the case and that the information was ‘relevant to the case’. The
Ombudsman referred to the fact that the information was part of the grounds
on which the Ministry had assessed the case and that it was relevant to the case
as it appeared that the Ministry had commented on the statements and to a
certain extent also given its advice on that basis.
The Ombudsman therefore asked the Ministry of Justice to resume the case and
make a new decision with regard to this additional information.
The Ministry of Justice subsequently resumed the case and gave access to the
paragraph in question.
2014-36. REFUSED INCREASED ACCESS TO FILES BASED
ON AUTHORITY’S RESOURCE USE. ANONYMISATION
A journalist complained to the Ombudsman because the Immigration Service
and the Ministry of Justice had given a (partial) refusal to his request for access
to at least 600 cases in which asylum seekers had been refused healthcare treatment.
The documents included in the request for access contained, among other
things, information on the healthcare details of the individual asylum seekers,
and the documents consequently contained information which was exempt from
access pursuant to section 30(i) of the Access to Public Administration Files
Act.
In their decisions, the authorities had taken into account that the Immigration
Service would have to use at least 15 minutes per case ‒ meaning at least 150
hours or 20 full working days ‒ in order to comply with the request for access.
On this basis, the Ombudsman did not have grounds for criticising the Immigration Service’s opinion that anonymisation of the relevant information could
not take place without considerable use of the Service’s resources and that a refusal to the request had consequently been given pursuant to section 30(i) of the
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