The BBC fended off another challenge from lawyer Steven Sugar, who continues to push for the Balen Report‘s public release. Three judges upheld a lower court’s ruling that the report is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.
The Daily Mail writes:
Mr Sugar, a commercial solicitor from Putney, South-West London, could now seek to take his case to the House of Lords.
If he does, the BBC will pay thousands more in legal fees, at a time when the corporation is pleading poverty over a cash crisis and up to 1,800 jobs are being axed.
The case could go all the way to the European Court in Strasbourg.
The Beeb has spent an estimated £250,000 in licence-fee to cover up the report.
At Open Secrets, a BBC blog addressing FOI issues, Martin Rosenbaum once described the knotty issue like this:
And now that people have started asking me whether I am a functional journalist or a strategic journalist, I have decided the safest thing to do is just look puzzled. That seems to work so far.
