Carmody v Information Commissioner and Ors (4)

The case of Carmody v Information Commissioner and Ors involved a dispute over the right to information under the Right to Information Act 2009 (Qld). The Information Commissioner had ruled that certain documents should be made available to media outlets, a decision that was appealed by Carmody and the Department of Justice and Attorney General (DJAG). The primary legal issues before the court were whether the Information Commissioner had erred in her interpretation of sections 12, 14, 17, and the relevant schedules of the RTI Act, particularly concerning the exclusion of documents relating to judicial functions and the applicability of the public interest test.

The court found that the Information Commissioner had erred in her interpretation of the RTI Act. Specifically, the court held that the Information Commissioner incorrectly considered that the Supreme Court was part of the DJAG for the purposes of the RTI Act, which was incompatible with the independence of the Supreme Court. The court also determined that the Information Commissioner failed to properly characterise the documents in dispute as relating to the exercise of the Supreme Court's judicial functions and, therefore, subject to exclusion under the RTI Act. Additionally, the court found that the Information Commissioner had erred in her consideration of the public interest, taking into account irrelevant factors and failing to consider relevant ones. Consequently, the court set aside the Information Commissioner's decision and refused access to the documents in dispute, finding that the public interest harm in disclosing the documents outweighed any benefit.

The court ordered that the appeal by Carmody and DJAG against the Information Commissioner's decision was upheld, the Information Commissioner's order of 27 June 2016 was set aside, and access to the documents in dispute was refused. The court also reserved the costs of the appeal with liberty to the parties to apply to the Tribunal on 28 days' notice on the issue of costs.