Pat James
/ Data Access & Compliance Unit
Ministry of Justice
102 Petty France
London
SW1H 9AJ

12 May 2017

Dear MrJames

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request - 111242

Thank you for your request dated 3 April 2017for an Internal Review of FOI request 110362in which you asked for the following information from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ):

Under the terms and requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, please provide me with the “full documented court administrative procedure” under common law which governs the process of adjudication in an “administrative court” when dealing with a “Parking Charge Notice” at the; Business (Bulk) Centre.

St Kathrine’s House

21-27 St Kathrine’s Street

Northampton

NN1 2LH

The purpose of an Internal Review is to assess how your FOI request was handled in the first instance and to determine whether the original decision given to you was correct. This is an independent review. I was not involved in the original decision.

Our response to your original request confirmed that the information requested was held. The information was exempt from disclosure under section 21 the FOIAas it was reasonable accessible to you by other means and links to the information wereprovided.After careful consideration I have concluded that this response was compliant with the requirements of the FOIA.

Statutory deadline

Your request was dated 18 February 2017 and was responded to on 7 March 2017. The 20 working day statutory deadline for your request was met and the response was therefore compliant with the requirements of the FOIA.

Outcome

Section 21 of the FOIA was correctly applied as the information requested is reasonably accessible to you via the links provided in the original response. Section 21 of the FOIA exempts disclosure of information that is reasonably accessible by other means, and the terms of the exemption mean that we do not have to consider whether or not it would be in the public interest for you to have the information.

The link below was provided in the initial response which provided acomprehensive Civil Rules and Practice Directions.Part 75 deals with Traffic Enforcement which set out in detail the rules, responsibilities and obligations relating to these matters.

In addition, whilst you are entitled to ask for an Internal Review of any response provided to you, I do not accept the inappropriate tone or language used in your request for this Internal Review in this instance. The department has a duty of care to protect its staff, the Judiciary and its resources from abuse and part of this duty is to prevent members of the public abusing, insulting and harassing those who work for it. At this stage I do not propose to take any further action but if you continue to correspond in this manner in future requests the MoJ will take appropriate steps under the available legislation to do so.

The FOIA is designed to allow information previously held by the state to be available to the general public, academics and the media.It is not designed to be a vehicle for on-going and protracted correspondence with the department relating to personal grievances.

In conclusion, I am satisfied that the response you received on 7 March was correct and was provided to you within the required statutory timescale.

Appeal Rights

If you are not satisfied with this response you have the right to apply to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The Commissioner is an independent regulator who has the power to direct us to respond to your request differently, if she considers that we have handled it incorrectly.

You can contact the ICO at the following address:

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Yours sincerely

Bob Weston,

Analysis and Performance Division, Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS).

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