The ICO's office has issued a response to an FoI request enquiring about the legal status of the six-month statute of limitations that is apparently preventing them from prosecuting anyone at UEA over breaches of the FoI Act. Alongside their statement, the ICO has also released a lot of their correspondence on the matter, including an interesting exchange with Jonathan Leake of the Sunday Times over the legal niceties. The ICO certainly seems pretty convinced that prosecution under the FoI Act is indeed time barred. This, for example, seems to be an internal email on the subject:
The six months is in the legislation so prosecution is not possible but we will see what action
can be taken once the inquiries report. The relevant section is Sec 77 of the Freedom of
Information Act.
Interestingly, Jonathan Leake queries the ICO on whether an offence of conspiracy has been committed under the terms of the Criminal Law Act 1977, and the ICO's opinion on this question is rather mysterious. The ICO's PR firm raised the question of prosecutions with the deputy commissioner, Graham Smith:
We have had a number of queries today relating to the six month issue. We have been able
to deal with most by explaining the difference between when a matter arose and when we
became aware of it. I am not sure if [probably Jonathan Leake....] is correct in citing the Magistrates Court Act in relation to the six month issue or indeed the Criminal Law Act when raising the conspiracy point. You may have the answers on this, but if not I suspect we will need further legal advice.
And this email was also sent from the ICO press office, perhaps to Leake:
It's too early to say what we will do. We will look at the evidence...from the inquiries already underway and decide what action is then appropriate. I would emphasise that we are providing assistance to the police. We are not going to speculate about action/outcomes at this stage.
So the question of prosecution for conspiracy appears to be unanswered, although the possibility of taking legal advice to answer it is raised. There is probably scope for another FoI here to see what advice they have taken on the subject.
And there is another aspect of the emails that is of great concern. This is the statement that the ICO is going to decide whether to take action based on the findings of, among others, the Russell inquiry, which everyone on this side of the debate expects to be an all-encompassing whitewash. It's possible, of course, that they are merely going to wait and see if anything emerges from Russell's work that they haven't thought of.
But I do hope they are not merely going to unquestioningly accept whatever Russell and Boulton decide.