This commission maintains that there is no provision in the “2017 Act”, to create another official record, based on originally requested record, to share with the Appellant, if the public body decides that the originally requested record cannot be shared.
This commission holds that the record available with a public body is either a public record, if not hit by any of the exemption clauses of the Right of Access to Information Act, 2017, or, exempted record if hit by any of the exemption clauses of the “2017 Act”.
This commission also holds that the “2017 Act” does not accord blanket exemption to any record available with federal public bodies. The “2017 Act” envisages a situation wherein a document, which should be otherwise be made public but its parts may be hit by any of the exemption clauses of the “2017 Act’. In such an eventuality, the part hit by exemption clauses can be severed from the document as mentioned in Section 16 (1) (i) of the “2017 Act”.
This commission, after going through the content of the requested letter in in-camera proceedings, determines that it is a public document as it is not hit by any of the exemption clauses mentioned in Section 7 and Section 16 of the “2017 Act”.