David Ottewell, November 26, 2007, David Ottewell's politics

From the Compact Oxford English Dictionary:

vexatious
• adjective 1 causing annoyance or worry. 2 Law denoting an action or the bringer of an action that is brought without sufficient grounds for winning, purely to cause annoyance to the defendant.

I am a journalist. I have been called many things. But "vexatious"? By Number 10 Downing Street? Simply for asking what emails the prime minister sends in a week?

Oh, yes.

It was a Freedom of Information request. A reasonable one, I thought. A request designed to give people an idea what exactly the prime minister gets up to in an average week.

What I asked for, specifically, was:

...all emails sent (personally) by the prime minister in the week 22 October to 26 October.

The "personally" was simply to clarify that I didn't want emails sent by Number 10 officials in Mr Brown's name. No, no, no. I wanted the real McCoy.

You can read the reply here.

Section 14(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 simply states that a public body is not obliged to answer a request that is vexatious. The term is not defined.

The Department for Constitutional Affairs website gives a bit more information. It advises that "vexatiousness needs to be assessed in all the circumstances of an individual case, but if a request is not a genuine endeavour to access information for its own sake, but is aimed at disrupting the work of an authority, or harassing individuals in it, then it may well be vexatious".

A non-exhaustive list then follows:

1. If an applicant explicitly states that it is his or her intention to cause a public authority the maximum inconvenience through a request, it will almost certainly make that request vexatious.

- Clearly that doesn't apply to my request.

2. If an applicant... has previously indicated an intention to cause a public authority the maximum inconvenience through making requests, it will usually be possible to regard that request as being vexatious.

- Nope. Not guilty.

3. The request clearly does not have any serious purpose or value. It will usually be easier to recognise such cases than define them. Although the act does not require the person making a request to disclose any reason or motivation, there may be cases which are so lacking in serious purpose or value that they can only be fairly treated as "vexatious" - for instance a request for the number of unmarried employees an organisation may have, may be able to be classified justifiably as a vexatious request. Such cases are especially likely to arise where there has been a series of requests. Before reaching such a conclusion, however, a public authority should be careful to consider any explanation which the applicant gives as to the value in disclosing the information which may be made in the course of an appeal against refusal (see below).

- I guess this is the one. But really... Isn't it perfectly obvious why it might be more in the public interest to ask what emails the prime minister has sent in a week that how many unmarried people work in Manchester city council? Have they misread "personally" as "personal"? And why did no one even bother to ask why I thought the request was legitimate?

4. The request can fairly be characterised as obsessive or manifestly unreasonable. It will usually be easier to recognise such cases than define them. They will be exceptional - public authorities must have valid reasons for making such a judgement. An apparently tedious request, which in fact relates to a genuine concern, must not be dismissed. But a public authority is not obliged to comply with a request which a reasonable person would describe as obsessive or manifestly unreasonable.

- "Obsessive or manifestly unreasonable". Can't see it myself.

I will be appealing - if only to get a proper explanation.