Going to law How The Telegraph won its legal fight
Details of Tony Blair’s interactions with the official watchdog monitoring the paid roles he took up after Downing Street were only released after a legal battle lasting almost four years.
The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA) rejected a Freedom of Information (FOI) request sent by this newspaper in Feb 2015 asking for Mr Blair’s communications with the watchdog.
The committee insisted that releasing the correspondence would breach the “safe space” former ministers enjoy in communicating with its officials about whether their proposed roles are permissible. It claimed ex ministers and civil servants would stop seeking its approval for jobs if they believed their correspondence could be publicly disclosed – despite the ministerial code requiring them to consult the body.
The Telegraph appealed to the Information Commissioner, which polices the FOI Act. The Commissioner acknowledged Mr Blair was a “special case”, but ultimately upheld the Government’s refusal to release the documents.
The Telegraph appealed to a tribunal which, in Nov 2016, ruled that the documents should be disclosed. At the hearing the Information Commissioner was represented by a barrister but ACOBA chose not to attend.
The Information Commissioner then appealed, along with ACOBA. Both were represented by prominent barristers at a subsequent tribunal hearing. The panel ruled in their favour and ordered that a fresh decision should be taken on the documents. On Sept 19 this year the Information Commissioner and ACOBA were again both represented by barristers at a further tribunal hearing. Lawyers in the Government Legal Department also worked on the case throughout.
On Nov 4, Judge Stephen Cragg issued his decision: the information should released. “We do not accept that if historical information of this nature about Tony Blair’s dealings with ACOBA is disclosed then there will be a ‘chilling effect’ in the future on free and frank discussions between ACOBA and its applicants,” he said.
He said the material “may well be of considerable journalistic interest”, contrary to claims by the Information Commissioner and ACOBA that the “limited” nature of the information “diminishes significantly the public interest in disclosure”.