Dear Federal Court of Australia,

I seek access to documents under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth).

Please provide access to documents which constitute the records of the Federal Court Committee relating to Self-Represented Litigants (howsoever named or described), including (without limitation) the committee agenda, minutes, and any reports, dating from inception of the Committee to the present date.

The request assumes that all records of this committee are related to the management and administration of the resources of the Court Registry, on the basis that it would not be appropriate for any matters of a substantive nature relating to the discharge of the Court's jurisdiction in court proceedings to be the subject of deliberations by this Committee, rather than being discussed in open court.

Yours faithfully,

(Not the real) Bob Neil

Dear External FOI,

Thank you for acknowledging my request. I note your comments about the charging of fees.

Yours sincerely,

(Not the real) Bob Neil

Dear Mr Henderson

With respect, your response fails to apprehend the nature of my request of 12 July 2023, because it has omitted to consider an important detail of the request. Due to your refusal of access on the basis of this misapprehension, it appears that the search undertaken for records meeting the description in the request was not adequate.

After the paragraph commencing "Please provide access . . .", there was a further paragraph in my request, which appears to have been overlooked in your response. That further paragraph stated:

"The request assumes that all records of this committee are related to the management and administration of the resources of the Court Registry, on the basis that it would not be appropriate for any matters of a substantive nature relating to the discharge of the Court's jurisdiction in court proceedings to be the subject of deliberations by this Committee, rather than being discussed in open court."

The omission of any reference to this further paragraph of my request in your letter, is sufficient to confirm that your decision-making process miscarried, in that you erroneously claim to have taken into account "the terms of [my] request", when, in fact, you evidently did not take into account all the relevant terms therein.

This further paragraph was critical to the request, in that it had the effect of clarifying and refining the scope of the request to apply specifically, and only, to those documents which relate to "matters of an administrative nature." The phraseology of the request was consistent with that used in the case law which you helpfully cite in your letter, i.e. Kline v Official Secretary etc.

The records of the Self Represented Litigants Committee ought to consist solely of documents containing "matters of an administrative nature", which are related to the "management and administration of the resources of the Court Registry" for the simple reason that it would be improper for the substance of any proceeding before the Court to be discussed in private by Judges of the Court. The substance of extant court proceedings should only be dealt with exclusively in open court. The only legitimate purpose for a standing committee on Self Represented Litigants is to discuss matters of an administrative nature, arising in relation to the subject matter.

There should be nothing in the records of the Self Represented Litigants Committee that would "disclose the decision-making process involved in the exercise of those powers or performance of those functions in a particular matter or context". If the records in question do include content of that nature, and that is the basis upon which access is refused, I respectfully request that this be stated with sufficient clarity.

The second limb of your refusal of access is the assertion that any such records are in the possession of judicial officers. With respect, I doubt this to be exclusively the case. While it may be the case that some documents which fit the description in the request are in the possession of judicial officers, it is exceedingly improbable that all such documents could be held by the Judges of the Court. Your letter itself states that the Committee was "comprised mainly of judicial officers", rather than 'entirely' of judicial officers. Thus, documents in the possession of whomever else sat on the Committee, not being a judicial officer, cannot be covered by this claimed exemption.

It is not difficult to imagine various sorts of records, not in the possession of Judges, containing matters of an administrative nature, with respect to any standing committee. The practice of the Court appears to have invariably been to include non-judicial court staff on such standing committees, and it is reasonable to presume that these members were responsible for maintaining the records of the proceedings of a Committee, and performing any other secretarial or logistical tasks, such as fixing dates, booking meeting rooms, distributing agenda and minutes, fielding apologies, etc.

It is important to note that any such documents or records held by non-judicial staff and then placed in the records of the Registry itself, are not rendered exempt from production by virtue of the same records also being in the possession of any judicial officers. The same documents or records may be exempt in the hands of a Judge, but not exempt in the records of the Registry.

Locating these records should be as straightforward as identifying the non-judicial staff who were members of the Committee, and then searching through files (or email accounts) associated with those individuals. In terms of the Registry's files, the "Senate Order new file list" which is required to be published by the Court each year, should also include the files associated with each standing committee for each year it was in operation. Again, it is unlikely that any of these files are held in safekeeping by any judicial officer. Basic information such as the year of inception and year of abolition for the present standing Committees, and their membership, are currently discernible from published Court records, such as the Annual Report, and historical records of similar character should be recorded in the files of the Registry.

I respectfully offer the above suggestions for your consideration in conjunction with my request for internal review of your initial decision on this matter.

Yours sincerely,

(Not the real) Bob Neil