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Section 16 Manual
4.14 Discretion to admit invalid applications
Where an application for review is totally invalid, in that it relates to a decision in respect of which the Commissioner has no jurisdiction, a Higher Executive Officer, or higher grade, should reject it under section 34(9)(a)(ii). Where the application is valid in part, the normal approach should be to only accept the application to the extent that it is valid. However, in exceptional cases of the kind described below it may be decided at the discretion of an Investigator to admit the application in full. In the case of requests under section 7 the approach to be adopted is that the application may be admitted in full where it appears that no useful purpose would be served by insisting that the applicant make a fresh application to the public body. Examples of such situations are requests for records to which section 22(1)(a) or section 46 clearly apply. In such situations, subject to the agreement of the public body, it is better to accept the application for review in full, although the applicant should be informed that technically, a review of the refusal of access could be refused or a challenge to the validity of the Commissioner's review could subsequently be made.
4.15 Similar considerations apply in the case of an application, by a person claiming to be affected by an act of a public body, for review of a decision on an application made under section 18 for a statement of the reasons for the act and of any material findings of fact. However, some care is needed in deciding whether such applications are invalid. In practice, applicants may appear to be raising new matters at internal review or Information Commissioner stage, when all they are really doing is questioning the adequacy of the original section 18 decision. However, cases where the matter raised bears little or no relationship to the original request to the public body should not be accepted. Similarly, cases where the section 18 request arose first at internal review stage, prompted, perhaps, by access to records obtained in an original request, should normally be rejected.
