The MHRA are demonstrating complete contempt for the public almost deliberately. Anyone still believing their safe and effective covid injection spiel are beyond help and will continue to self harm. I did not trust their rubber stamping of the covid injections in 2020 and I certainly will not pay attention to anything they have to say in the future, to me they have become irrelevant.
“This information request in its current format would be exempt under S12 or S14.”
It's the "OR" that gives them away as simply wanting to brush you off because the logical inference here is that possibly neither S12 nor S14 provides grounds for exemption and that if either on its own actually DID provide grounds for exemption then it would not be necessary to invoke the other.
The legal challenge mentioned in your Stop Press suggests a wonderful dissonance between the public interest and the a priori of the Hallett Enquiry.
I received the ‘vexatious do not replying’ answer too, also backed up by the Commissioners Office. Appalling. All these ‘bodies’ need dismantling, not only do they not do their remit, they actively avoid doing it (and for large sums of money too!)
My first thought!: "the reader might be forgiven for thinking that there was too much to review and analyse in the time taken for authorisation in the first place! "
"[...] that the starting point is that vexatiousness primarily involves making a request which has no reasonable foundation, that is, no reasonable foundation for thinking that the information sought would be of value to the requester or to the public or any section of the public. [...]"
It does not mean 'something where the burden is greater than the public benefit'.
It means a request that has absolutely no benefit. Petty. Frivolous. Pointless. Their interpretation is therefore false.
Their argument to burden on staff resources is 'true of most government departments'. ICO have argued against this in the past:
"The ICO opposed this ground countering that, “to the extent that the Cabinet Office seeks to contend that section 14(1) entitled a public authority to refuse to comply with a request for information on the general basis that it is struggling to meet a large number of obligations with limited resources”, observing that, “the same is true for the majority of public authorities, and recognition of any such entitlement would deprive the right to information under section 1 FOIA of much of its effectiveness.”"
Read: if 'lack of resources' was a meaningful argument, all the offices would do is just reduce the size of and underfund their FOI departments in order to foreclose the risk of transparency and exposure.
Let me see if I get this right. The Gov’t is saying that they are too busy to do their job. If so they should be fined every day that they refuse to divulge the information to the public.
Perhaps the HART Team should ask one of the University of Oxford's Professors of Evidence-Based Medicine, the one who wrote a book entitled 'Bad Pharma'?
The MHRA are demonstrating complete contempt for the public almost deliberately. Anyone still believing their safe and effective covid injection spiel are beyond help and will continue to self harm. I did not trust their rubber stamping of the covid injections in 2020 and I certainly will not pay attention to anything they have to say in the future, to me they have become irrelevant.
“This information request in its current format would be exempt under S12 or S14.”
It's the "OR" that gives them away as simply wanting to brush you off because the logical inference here is that possibly neither S12 nor S14 provides grounds for exemption and that if either on its own actually DID provide grounds for exemption then it would not be necessary to invoke the other.
The legal challenge mentioned in your Stop Press suggests a wonderful dissonance between the public interest and the a priori of the Hallett Enquiry.
I received the ‘vexatious do not replying’ answer too, also backed up by the Commissioners Office. Appalling. All these ‘bodies’ need dismantling, not only do they not do their remit, they actively avoid doing it (and for large sums of money too!)
‘Vexatious so not replying’ - sorry typo
My first thought!: "the reader might be forgiven for thinking that there was too much to review and analyse in the time taken for authorisation in the first place! "
The speed of science........
They're misusing the term "vexatious".
Quoting:
"[...] that the starting point is that vexatiousness primarily involves making a request which has no reasonable foundation, that is, no reasonable foundation for thinking that the information sought would be of value to the requester or to the public or any section of the public. [...]"
https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/foi-eir-and-access-to-information/freedom-of-information-and-environmental-information-regulations/section-14-dealing-with-vexatious-requests/what-does-vexatious-mean/
It does not mean 'something where the burden is greater than the public benefit'.
It means a request that has absolutely no benefit. Petty. Frivolous. Pointless. Their interpretation is therefore false.
Their argument to burden on staff resources is 'true of most government departments'. ICO have argued against this in the past:
"The ICO opposed this ground countering that, “to the extent that the Cabinet Office seeks to contend that section 14(1) entitled a public authority to refuse to comply with a request for information on the general basis that it is struggling to meet a large number of obligations with limited resources”, observing that, “the same is true for the majority of public authorities, and recognition of any such entitlement would deprive the right to information under section 1 FOIA of much of its effectiveness.”"
https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/foi-eir-and-access-to-information/freedom-of-information-and-environmental-information-regulations/section-14-dealing-with-vexatious-requests/how-do-we-consider-burden-motive-and-harassment/
Read: if 'lack of resources' was a meaningful argument, all the offices would do is just reduce the size of and underfund their FOI departments in order to foreclose the risk of transparency and exposure.
Let me see if I get this right. The Gov’t is saying that they are too busy to do their job. If so they should be fined every day that they refuse to divulge the information to the public.
Delay, delay, delay. Nothing says I’ve got something to hide louder than all the gobbly goop reasons they’re giving.
Perhaps the HART Team should ask one of the University of Oxford's Professors of Evidence-Based Medicine, the one who wrote a book entitled 'Bad Pharma'?
https://warwickvegan.substack.com/p/bad-pharma