Publishing Whitehall submissions on judicial review reform proposals would have been helpful to parliamentarians, a tribunal has said, while ruling for the government on non-disclosure.

The first-tier tribunal (general regulatory chamber) dismissed Public Law Project’s appeal against the Information Commissioner’s decision not to require the Ministry of Justice to disclose submissions by 14 government departments and 10 Downing Street to the Independent Review of Administrative Law.

The tribunal concluded that the arguments put forward by PLP were outweighed by the public interest in maintaining the convention of cabinet collective responsibility. The submissions would reveal ‘wide ranging, frank and in some instances divergent’ views and the harm arising from their disclosure would be ‘high’.

However, while siding with the Ministry of Justice, the panel rejected the department’s contention that disclosure of the submissions would ‘add nothing’ to the parliamentary debate on the Judicial Review and Courts Bill. ‘We find that such disclosure would facilitate heightened scrutiny of the JRC bill during its passage through parliament and enable parliamentarians to consider additional proposals for reform made by ministers in the unpublished submissions,’ the tribunal said.

The tribunal also revealed that there were ‘themes considered within the unpublished submissions that are omitted from consideration in the summary document, and we also find that disclosure of the submissions would add colour and context to the information contained within the summary document’.

On the day the government unveiled its controversial judicial review reforms, then lord chancellor Robert Buckland told parliament that a summary of the Whitehall submissions would 'give everybody a clear view of submissions to the call for evidence'.

The tribunal said: ‘Given the fundamental importance of the wider reform of judicial review, we anticipate that there will be many organisations and people, including members of parliament and the House of Lords, with an interest and/or expertise in its reform, who might wish to contribute to the debate. A better-informed public debate must always be preferred as a matter of common sense because it supports the objective of transparency.’

The tribunal rejected the government’s assertion that disclosing the unpublished submissions would have a ‘chilling effect’.

About half of the two-day tribunal hearing was heard in private. As well as an 'open' decision, the tribunal has also issued a ‘closed’ decsion, which only the MoJ and ICO are allowed to see.