De Jonge after Wob judgment judge: ‘We are going to look at the ruling’

The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport does not yet want to say whether it wants to adjust the alternative method of Wob requests, after the judge’s ruling yesterday. In that statement judged the court that the department’s conduct is not in accordance with the Government Information (Public Access) Act (Wob). Today, outgoing minister Hugo de Jonge says he will “look closely at the verdict and what it means for the working method.”

Since the start of the corona crisis, the ministry has used an alternative method for Wob requests, in which a request is not assessed individually. Instead, the ministry itself determines which information will be released at what time. According to De Jonge, this is unavoidable due to the large amount of documents and Wob requests.

‘Yeah, it was a crisis’

De Jonge now says that the ministry always wanted to be transparent, but simply did not get around to it because it was too much work in times of crisis. The court points out that De Jonge apparently saw no reason to draw up “specific legal provisions”.

“Yeah, it was a crisis,” says De Jonge. “And despite this crisis, we are doing everything we can to be as transparent as possible. And that means that we want to make all documents available to anyone who requests it.” The minister does not want to comment on how he views the judge’s opinion that the so-called ‘partial decisions’ he takes do not conform to the Wob.

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A Wob request must normally be processed within eight weeks. news hour submitted three Wob requests in May 2020, which have still not been processed. As a result, stepped news hour to court.

The minister would not say whether the ministry will appeal or not. The court ruled yesterday that the minister must still make a decision within two months on the three Wob requests, on pain of an increased penalty.

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