Most MPs' home addresses will now never be disclosed

Things have changed substantially since this morning. Parliament's lawyers have said that they cannot appeal because they can go to the High Court only on a point of law, not because they disagreed with the tribunal judgment.

Unless there is some ingenious new legal argument before Tuesday for it not to go ahead, the disclosure of the details of the second home expenses of 14 MPs will now happen. Including their home addresses.

However it looks as if the the other 632 MPs home addresses will not have to be disclosed. There is an exemption in the FOI legislation for anything that would cause "disruption to Parliament", and sources close to the argument think that this can be applied when the data is released en masse here.

Because of a cock-up by the Commission's lawyers, it is too late, however, to use this argument to stop the release of the home addresses of the 14.

Phew

Comments

[Watching Them, Watching Us]

It is interesting that "Parliament's lawyers" do not seem to be attempting to use the Bill of Rights 1689 to suppress this FOIA High Court Appeal, just like they are trying to do in the High Court Appeal by the Office of Government Commerce who have been ordered to fully disclose the early Gateway Reviews of the Home Office Identity Cards Programme.

Computer Weekly:
High Court case on ID Cards Gateway reviews, the 1689 Bill of Rights and Commons' Speaker
www.computerweekly.com/blogs/tony_collins/2008/03/high-court-case-on-id-cards-ga.html

Spy Blog - UK FOIA Requests:
Government and the Speaker of the House of Commons collude to try to abuse the 17th Century Bill of Rights to suppress the FOIA disclosure of OGC Gateway Reviews of the ID Cards Programme
www.spyblog.org.uk/foia/ogc_gateway_reviews_of_the_identity_cards_programme/

[Watching Them, Watching Us]

The Information Tribunal actually ruled that

"(7) Where a particular MP has a special security reason for keeping the address of his or her main or second home confidential (for example, because of a problem with a stalker, or a terrorist or other criminal threat), that address may be redacted."

www.informationtribunal.gov.uk/Documents/decisions/HOCfinaldecisionwebsite260208.pdf

[Chuck Unsworth]

Spyblog is absolutely right to highlight the Tribunal's ruling.

Is the Tribunal now prepared to hear the cases of all 632 MPs with a view to determining the security position of each of them? Or is the Tribunal suffering from schizophrenia? But perhaps the Tribunal has buckled under since its ruling promulgated on 28 February.

Is this yet another example of make-it-up-as-you-go-along law?

What's the problem with publication of MPs addresses? Most are in the public domain already - many as a direct result of being published by MPs themselves, and just how difficult is it to find anyone's address, anyway? Why are these self-publicist elected representatives suddenly so reluctant to publish information about themselves, is it possible that they might have something to hide?

This is nothing to do with security and absolutely everything to do with fear of being found out.

[Anne Murphy]

Just how difficult would it be to have an open to all comers web page to which these addresses could be contributed by anyone who knows them? Surely they are so widely known that most of them could be put on the record that way. As I said on the earlier post, if Paul McCartney didn't have a security problem with releasing his addresses, why should our MPs be any more at risk?

[John Barlow]

Does this ruling apply to an MP's Email address? Try Laura Moffat. MP for Crawley. Always non deliverable