[2023] UKUT 143 (AAC)

The complainant has requested information about a public statement made regarding the degree awarded to current Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen. The Council of the London School of Economics and Political Science (“the LSE”) relied on section 17(6) of FOIA to decline to issue a refusal notice as it considered the request to be vexatious.

The Commissioner’s decision is that the LSE was entitled to rely on section 17(6) of FOIA to decline to issue a refusal notice.

The Commissioner does not require further steps.

A public authority which, in relation to any request for information, is relying on a claim that section 12 or 14 applies must, within the time for complying with section 1(1), give the applicant a notice stating that fact.

Subsection (5) does not apply where—

On the available evidence, the Commissioner considers that all three criteria are met.

The complainant provided a copy of a previous refusal notice he had received from the LSE refusing a request he made in 2019 as vexatious.

The present request is also vexatious. It seeks to question the provenance of a statement that was published on the LSE’s website two years ago – the implication being that some “third party” hijacked or coerced the LSE into both making a statement on its website in 2019 and (presumably) maintaining that statement on its website ever since.

The complainant is, by his own admission, one of the main proponents of what he calls the “doctorate scamming” conspiracy theory. The Commissioner has dealt with this conspiracy theory in previous decision notices, finding it to be of extremely dubious public interest.

Given the complainant’s self-confessed advocacy of this conspiracy theory, the Commissioner considers that he is unlikely to be satisfied by any response the LSE provides and is likely to require the LSE to divert further resources to responding to follow-up queries.

Given the information already released into the public domain by the LSE, the current and contemporaneous records that exist, the Commissioner considers that the complainant’s pursuit of this matter (some three years after questions were first raised) can fairly be characterised as obsessive. Furthermore, the Commissioner notes that the complainant’s evidence demonstrates that he is working in conjunction with other individuals who are making requests to the LSE about the same matter.

The Commissioner is therefore satisfied that this request is a manifestly unjustified, inappropriate or improper use of a formal procedure and is thus vexatious.

Finally, the Commissioner has considered whether it was appropriate for the LSE to not issue a refusal notice in these circumstances. He considers that it was.

The complainant has drawn the Commissioner’s attention to the recent public statement he made regarding the “doctorate scamming” conspiracy theory. Whilst issued after the request was dealt with, the Commissioner considers that this statement adequately demonstrates that the complainant’s obsessive and unreasonable pursuit of this matter is unlikely to cease in the near future. The LSE is entitled to consider the likely effect of issuing a further refusal notice – which is likely to involve further diversion of resources in a disproportionate manner.

Whilst the original reliance on section 14 occurred some two years prior to the request that is the subject of this notice, the Commissioner does not consider that anything of significance has changed in the intervening period. Nor would there be any public value in the information that the request seeks.

The Commissioner therefore considers that it was reasonable in the circumstances for the LSE not to have issued a further refusal notice.