“In Pursuit of Truth” — A Retaliation to Potential Charges Levied for Freedom of Information Requests on the Isle of Man

I must express my growing concern as to the putative charges levied to those citizens who wish to request information in line with the Freedom of Information Act 2015 (Isle of Man) (“the Act”). To access relevant data of which the government collects, processes, and schedules, must be an unqualified right, without the barrier of being able to afford it monetarily. This is because, as per Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” This quote is relevant for several reasons: (a) by imposing fees to access relevant information from the government or other legislative bodies within our island, this reduces access to those individuals who may require such information the most; (b) the tax-payer will normally be the beneficiary themself of any such information imparted by freedom of information request(s); and (c) the interference of levying charges on any such requests does more harm than good (‘the harm principle’). The reasons why this does more harm than good is because the freedom to access public information or that information which is used for public reasons (e.g. to support ministers in the provision of infrastructure, health, defence, etc) should be free to access to avoid a disparity amongst those who have the privilege to access such information with money and those do not. By imposing costs and fees into the picture, this process would ultimately favour those who are able to pay, while ignoring those who cannot or choose not to pay, in order to access information which they have the legal right to access, as per section 8 of the Act which states, “[s]ubject to this Act, every person who is resident in the Island has a legally enforceable right to obtain access, in accordance with this Act, to information held by a public authority.” This enriched right of access would not be enforceable if fees and costs are levied amongst the most regular Manxman or Manxwoman. Alternatively, freedom of information requests should be appropriately and accurately recorded, citing who has requested such information; their purposes for collection; and ensuring that any such requests are not excessive in number or frequency. This is to give efficacy to the legal right of citizens and residents of the Isle of Man, by providing them with the unequivocal right to access and be provided with any such information which is publicly held, in order to formulate educated opinions and perspectives of the direction of our economy, health prospects, and society.