Advice to Medical Officers of Health
James Adams made this Official Information request to Ministry of Health
The request was refused by Ministry of Health.
From: James Adams
Dear Ministry of Health,
I appreciate that you will likely be under substantial pressure at the moment, and I am happy to discuss this OIA request by phone or email if that would help to reduce your workload.
However, I wish to be sent any advice sent to Medical Officers of Health within the last month (ie. March 2020) on the exercise of their powers under Part 3 of the Health Act and especially sections 70 and 71.
Further, I wish to receive a copy of any administrative guidelines promulgated by the Ministry of Health that may influence the exercise of Medical Officer of Health powers under Parts 3 and 3A of the Act, such as what non-statutory factors ought to be considered, or whether Medical Officers of Health are asked to consult the Ministry or Civil Defence before issuing a directive, order or exercising their powers under sections 70 and 71.
For clarity, I am particularly interested in any guidance or checklists provided to Medical Officers of Health on the exercise of these powers with respect to the Bill of Rights Act 1990 or the possibility of judicial review. I would be happy to receive guidance considered 'legal advice' insofar as this be released consistently with s 9(2)(h) of the Official Information Act. I am not interested in the guidance given to any particular Medical Officer of Health or in respect of any particular instance where the use of these powers may have been considered.
Yours faithfully,
James Adams
Student at the University of Auckland
Ministry of Health
Kia ora
Thank you for your request for official information.
The Ministry's reference number for your request is: H202001845.
As required under the Act we will endeavour to respond to your request no
later than 5 May 2020, being 20 working days after the day your request
was received.
If we are unable to respond to your request within this time frame, we
will notify you of an extension of that time frame.
If you have any queries related to this request, please do not hesitate to
get in touch.
Please note, due to the emergence of Covid-19 the Ministry has diverted
significant resources to responding to the pandemic. This may impact on
our ability to respond to your request. If you would like to reconsider or
refine your current request, this may enable us to respond more quickly.
You can notify us of any changes to your request by responding to this
email.
Ngā mihi
OIA Services
Government Services
Office of the Director-General
Ministry of Health
E: [email address]
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attachments may contain information that is IN-CONFIDENCE and subject to
legal privilege.
If you are not the intended recipient, do not read, use, disseminate,
distribute or copy this message or attachments.
If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender
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Ministry of Health
Kia ora James
Please find attached a letter regarding your request for official
information.
Ngā mihi
OIA Services
Government Services
Office of the Director-General
Ministry of Health
E: [email address]
****************************************************************************
Statement of confidentiality: This e-mail message and any accompanying
attachments may contain information that is IN-CONFIDENCE and subject to
legal privilege.
If you are not the intended recipient, do not read, use, disseminate,
distribute or copy this message or attachments.
If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender
immediately and delete this message.
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This e-mail message has been scanned for Viruses and Content and cleared
by the Ministry of Health's Content and Virus Filtering Gateway
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James Adams left an annotation ()
I sent two similarly-worded requests for information to the Ministry of Health and Auckland DHB. In this response, the Ministry has got back to me, saying that they cannot release the documents due to 'legal privilege'. This is a ground for refusing to release information under the OIA. However, ADHB responded by providing the advice that I requested; you can view their response at https://fyi.org.nz/request/12567-advice-...
Link to this