Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The complainant submitted a request to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) seeking a list of all persons who the FCO or Her Majesty’s Government has been involved with regarding rendition to Libya when Colonel Gaddafi was in power. The FCO refused to confirm or deny whether it held information falling within the scope of his request on the basis of 23(5) (security bodies), 24(2) (national security) and 27(4) (international relations) of FOIA. The Commissioner has concluded that sections 23(5) and 24(2) are engaged and that in relation to section 24(2) the public interest favoured maintaining that exemption. The FCO is therefore entitled to refuse to confirm or deny whether it holds any information falling within the scope of the request.

This decision notice was appealed by the complainant and during the course of the appeal the public authority disclosed the confidential annex to the complainant. Following this disclosure, the Commissioner has published the confidential annex online along with the decision notice.

The public authority’s consent to the confidential annex being published is specific to this case, and is without prejudice, more generally, to the authority’s view of the continued ability of the Commissioner to produce confidential annexes to her decisions, and for that confidential information to be protected during an appeal process in accordance with the General Regulatory Chamber rules. First-tier tribunal (General Regulatory chamber) information rights appeal EA/2020/0107 appeal dismissed.