Complaint sent following COGAT response to Freedom of Information request on processing applications under the “settlement procedure”
On November 26, 2012, Gisha, in cooperation with HaMoked: Center for the Defence of the Individual, sent an application (Hebrew) under the Freedom of Information Act 5758-1998 (FOIA) to the official in charge of implementing the Freedom of Information Act at the office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT). The application concerned information regarding the Procedure for handling Applications by Gaza Strip Residents for settlement in the Judea and Samaria Area (hereinafter: the settlement procedure or the procedure). Gisha asked for clarifications on how applications submitted under the procedure are reviewed and how responses are delivered, as well as statistics on the number of applications that have been filed under the procedure since its formulation, the number of denials and approvals and the like.More than four months after the FOIA request was sent, and after all the extensions permitted in the Freedom of Information Act were exhausted using various pretexts, COGAT’s response (Hebrew) was finally received. But the information it contained proved to be incomplete, thin and full of internal contradictions. Moreover, while the request sought information on applications filed under the settlement procedure only, COGAT’s response contained statistics about all applications for address changes. The irrelevant figures failed to answer the questions asked in the request, and in fact, withheld the requested information by embedding it in a table of general statistics.
In light of this, on April 22, 2013, as a follow-up to the request, Gisha sent a complaint listing all the problems with COGAT’s response and requesting that partial information be supplemented and vague information be clarified. The complaint also included a repeat request for the principal information that was sought in the original request and was not provided, namely statistics on the settlement procedure. The letter noted that if a satisfactory answer was not provided by May 6, 2013, legal action would be contemplated.
