Freedom of Information Act – Dispute Resolution Germany

The Berlin Administrative Court (Verwaltungsgericht) ruled in favor of information access under the German Freedom of Information Act (Informationsfreiheitsgesetz, IFG) in a case related to the German passenger car toll system (Pkw-Maut). The case revolved around claims from plaintiffs – the prospective toll operators – for specific documents from the Federal Ministry of Transport (Bundesverkehrsministerium). The Ministry had claimed various grounds to withhold the information, including potential adverse effects on ongoing arbitral proceedings. However, the court rejected these arguments and asserted the primacy of the Information Freedom Act (IFG) over the procedural rules of arbitral proceedings. This decision sets an important precedent concerning the interplay between information access and arbitration procedures. Read More

Granted, it is slightly outside my usual scope of work – not many aliens around the office today, and generally speaking, very little interaction with other planets – or scope of interest, as I am not really into administrative law. But a case note on this was hard to resist:

The German parliament (Bundestag) did commission from its scientific advisory staff, a study titled “The search for extraterrestrial life and the implementation of UN Resolution A/33/426 on the observation of unidentified flying objects and extraterrestrial life forms” (Die Suche nach außerirdischem Leben und die Umsetzung der VN-Resolution A/33/426 zur Beobachtung unidentifizierter Flugobjekte und extraterrestrischen Lebensformen). Read More

Tag: Freedom of Information Act

Berlin Administrative Court Allows Freedom of Information Act Access in Support of Arbitral Proceedings

UFOs, Aliens, Parliament and the Freedom of Information Act