P A I A: Using the Law

[leuce]

Regulation 9(1)(c) is clear: "The head of a private body must ....(c) make available the manual on the website, if any, of the private body."

A little unclear, actually. It seems that whoever wrote that regulation thought that a private body will only ever have a single web site. And how would one determine which web site is the web site of a private body?

In the case that started this thread, the private body is Masstores (Pty) Ltd. They run several shops, and each shop has a web site, but these web sites are not the official web sites of the private body. In fact, it would appear that Masstores (Pty) Ltd doesn't have an official web site.

Mind you, when is a file "available" from a web site -- when it is linked to from one of its pages, or when it can be found by navigating from the home page (which is usually root/index.html or similar), or when it is hosted on the public_html section of the web server?

If the latter, then Masstores could well have a PAIA manual at, say, macro.co.za/paiapapaya.pdf, and if so, you could get it if you typed in the URL exactly right.

In any event, nothing stops Masstores from having the PAIA manual on their web site in Multimate or Wordstar format -- or is the implication of the regulation that it has to be a format that can generally be read in a browser (in which case, PDF and MS Word is out)?

[duncan drennan]

The general practice so far, as displayed by government departments and private companies, is to have the PAIA manual in a PDF format, and clearly link to it. e.g. http://www.telkom.co.za/ - look at the navigation at the bottom of the page.

I reckon in the extreme (and unlikely) case of a court case a judge would find that the whole concept of promotion of access to info would require a clear way to find the information, hence clear linking, versus a hidden (but actually there) manual.