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A lawyer on behalf of a requester (the appellant) submitted a request under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act) to the Public Guardian and Trustee (the PGT) as follows:
Recently [the appellant] applied to the [PGT] to replace the [PGT] as Statutory Guardian of Property of [the affected person] . . . The [PGT] was not satisfied that [the appellant] was a suitable applicant for the reason that several family members of [the affected person] did not support [the appellant's] application. In expressing this disapproval, [the appellant] believes that they wrote letters to the [PGT]. [The appellant] would like an opportunity to review these letters. To date the [PGT] has refused to provide them.
The PGT located four responsive records (consisting of five pages) and decided to deny access to them in full, on the basis of section 21 (personal privacy) of the Act.
The appellant then appealed the PGT's decision to this office. In her appeal letter the appellant stated that "the records contain information about [the appellant] only, and the disclosure of these records would not invade the author's privacy whatsoever."
During the mediation stage of the appeal, the PGT issued a revised decision letter, in which it stated it was relying on section 49(b), in conjunction with section 21, to deny access to the records.
I sent a Notice of Inquiry setting out the issues in the appeal initially to the PGT, the four authors of the letters (the primary affected persons), and another affected person, the appellant's husband (the secondary affected person). Only the PGT and the secondary affected person provided representations in response. The PGT provided representations in support of its position to withhold the records, while the secondary affected person consented to any information about him being disclosed to the appellant. I then sent the PGT's representations and a Notice of Inquiry to the appellant, who provided representations in response.
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