Judge slams department for ‘unpardonable’ PAIA delay
The independent investigative journalism unit amaBhungane has won a punitive cost order against the Department of Defence in an access to information battle that has spanned four years. An amaBhungane report says it submitted a Promotion of Access to Information Act request for records of all private landings at the Waterkloof airforce base for the 24 months preceding the April 2013 incident where the Gupta family landed an airliner bearing their wedding guests from India.
Two weeks after the incident, in May 2013, amaBhungane submitted a formal request to the department, but it took four years of correspondence and litigation before the department conceded it had no grounds to refuse. The department capitulated on the merits just days before the case was due to be argued on 10 May, but offered no reasons for the about-face after years of maintaining the documents could not be released.
AmaBhungane says it continued with the application for punitive costs, given that the department's behaviour was unjustified and had used up our time and money. The judge agreed. In awarding the costs order, Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) Judge Tati Makgoka described the department’s delays and failures to respond as ‘unpardonable’ and ‘unconscionable’. Makgoka said the objectives of the Act should be borne in mind: ‘Among those, is to afford the public a simple and inexpensive mechanism of obtaining information held by public bodies. Clearly, that objective has been frustrated in this case.’
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