Renton and Crime and Misconduct Commission

Renton and Crime and Misconduct Commission
(2006 F0183, 29 June 2006)

The issue in this external review was the ‘sufficiency of search’ by the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) for documents that evidenced contact by the CMC with a third party in the course of assessing complaints made by the applicant to the CMC.  Additional material from the parties was considered in the review and the CMC and Assistant Commissioner White conducted further searches that did not yield any documents relating to a third party. 

Sufficiency of search

In applying the principles stated in Shepherd and Department of Housing, Local Government & Planning (1994) 1 QAR 464, AC White affirmed the decision under review as she was satisfied that there were no reasonable grounds for believing that there exists, in the possession or under the control of the CMC, any further documents falling within the terms of the applicant’s freedom of information access application.  The searches and inquiries conducted by the CMC in an effort to locate any further responsive documents had been reasonable in all the circumstances of the case.