Dear Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service,

1) How many times in the last 4 yrs has the Chamber President of Admin Appeals Chamber banned the publication of a letter from her refusing a routine admin request for extra time in making a Complaint about a Tribunal judge?

2) How many times in the last 4 years has Upper Tier Tribunal Judge Jacobs banned the publication of a transcript of a recording of a hearing he has presided over?

Background

In December 2020, the Chamber President of the Admin Appeals Chamber, Mrs Justice Farbey DBE refused me permission to publish online any part of her 15 April 2020 letter rejecting my request for extra time in making a Complaint about Judge Jacobs, a fellow Tribunal judge. The extra time was needed because of a long delay by her Department in fulfilling a Subject Access Request (SAR) I had made. I needed the information contained in the SAR to cite evidence from it which would substantiate my complaint about Judge Jacobs. Dame Judith Farbey rejected my request for extra time despite the fact that the delay (caused by the impact of Covid-19) came from her Department. She also ignored the instruction of Senior President of Tribunals, Sir Ernest Ryder, who advised Tribunal judges that they should be ‘sympathetic to requests for extensions of time’. Her view of ‘We’re all in this together’ obviously chimed with Dominic Cummings’.

It’s worth noting that despite several – increasingly urgent – emails for an answer to my routine request for extra time till the SAR, she did not provide a response until after the deadline for me making a complaint had expired! Had she responded earlier I would have had enough time to make the complaint, meet the deadline before it expired. Her delay meant I was prevented from submitting my complaint.

Banning a member of the public from publishing any part of a letter responding to a routine admin request is, I would have thought, extremely unusual, if not unheard of. Why would a Chamber President Judge ban it? What had she got to hide? Was it the incompetence it revealed (she says my hearing with Judge Jacobs was on the 19 December 2019. It was on the 16 December). Was it the very confused logic of her refusal? Or was it the blatant hypocrisy? Or the disturbing delay in giving her response?

Judge Jacobs – the judge I wanted to complain about – had sent me a Directive in November 2019 about the focus of my hearing on the 16 December 2019. He said it would only be concerned with whether the ICO had made an ‘error in law’ – nothing else. It would not be at all concerned with the origin of my dispute with the ICO. My opening statement at the hearing concentrated on the ‘error in law’. Judge Jacobs’ 1st question was about the ‘origin of my dispute with the ICO! In 85 minutes, he barely asked me a single question about the ‘error in law’. He later dismissed my appeal because I hadn’t demonstrated an ‘error in law’! Nine months later it occurred to me I could apply for a recording of the hearing. It took a long time before the judge agreed to me having a recording. When I received it, I asked for Judge Jacobs’ permission to publish some of it online. He refused permission saying if I published any part of it, I faced ‘fines and imprisonment’ from contempt of court proceedings.

I wonder: why did he ban publication? What had he got to hide? I have since had a senior Ministry of Justice lawyer threaten me with the consequences of publishing Judge Farbey’s letter – I’d be facing, he said ‘contempt of court’ proceedings. So a letter is the same as a hearing or a court case?

Yours faithfully,

Dudley Jones

Dear LondonKILO,

Following your helpful advice that if I restrict the time scale of my FOI Request to one year you will be able to provide the information requested, could you please restrict the time period to one year in the case of 1) 'the number of times the Chamber President Judge of the Admin Appeals Chamber has banned the publication of a routine admin letter - as opposed to a Ruling or a judgement.

As far as the 2nd request is concerned:
2) How many times in the last 4 years has Upper Tier Tribunal Judge Jacobs banned the publication of a transcript of a recording of a hearing he has presided over?

could I reduce the period to 18 months? I'm sure you will agree that you don't need to search through every case file of Judge Jacobs' - you only need to ask Judge Jacobs. I would have thought it was extremely rare for him to 'ban the publication of a transcript of a recording he has presided over' - or am I wrong? Is it in fact a common occurrence? If this is what the judge says, perhaps you would be good enough to let me know. I'd have thought this need take no more time than say 5 minutes.

Yours sincerely,

Dudley Jones

Dear LondonKILO,
Could I ask you to respond to this FOI Request as a matter of urgency since you should have responded by the 10 June 2021.

It may clarify matters if I explain that the note in my FOI Request re: Judge Jacobs pertains to the 2nd part of the Request not to the first. To simplify your task I will withdraw the second question - the one that relates to Judge Jacobs.

Can I also refine my first request - and thus make it simpler for you - by restricting its scope: It should now read: 'the number of times a CP Judge (that is, Chamber President) Judge) of the ADMINISTRATIVE APPEALS Chamber has banned the publication of a routine admin letter' (that is, from her to a complainant). I am sure that won't exceed the cost limit of £600 since it must happen fairly rarely

Yours sincerely,

Dudley Jones

Dear Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service's handling of my FOI request 'The number of times a CP Judge has banned the publication of a routine admin letter?'
Your response 'that you do not hold the information requested' begs a number of questions. Is there any other body who would hold that information. If there's not, then this means the MoJ - like the JCIO - is failing to carry out its obligations placed upon it by the ICO to maintain efficient record-keeping. This is to ensure transparency, that the MoJ and the JCIO cannot act like Cambridge Analytica and say 'we can't respond to this request for information because we do not hold it. It looks to me as if the MoJ and the JCIO are DELIBERATELY not keeping efficient records: they don't want people to know about the way they are behaving.
It is a shameful dereliction of duty.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/t...

Yours faithfully,

Dudley Jones