Subject: Your WOO Request

Date: March 28, 2024
Subject: Your Woo request regarding concepts of the cabinet's response to
Department of Legal Affairs
Korte Voorhout 7
2511 CW The Hague
MAILBOX 20201
2500 EE The Hague
www.rijksoverheid.nl
Contact person
woo@minfin.nl
Our feature
2024-0000198487
Page 1 of 3
Dear,
By e-mail dated December 16, 2023, you asked me, invoking the Open Government Act (hereinafter: Woo), to disclose all concepts of the cabinet's response to the Pok report Unprecedented Injustice. Where relevant, your request is as follows:
“That is why, by means of this request, I am now asking you for all the concepts of the Parliamentary Letter in question, minus the 'supported' concepts of the relevant Parliamentary Letter that have already been assessed by your ministry. Before you unfairly restrict again, I inform you that this request should therefore also be interpreted in such a way that the concepts and/or drafts, etc. that are not supported and/or not submitted to the SG/DG working group, etc. should also be inventoried and assessed. '
Receipt of your request was confirmed by letter dated December 19, 2023 with the reference “2023-475”. With this letter, I have postponed the decision period by two weeks.
Unfortunately, it was not possible to decide on your request within the legal period. For this, I apologise to you.
Decree
I reject your request under article 4:6, paragraph 2 of the General Administrative Law Act (hereinafter: Awb). I explain my decision below.
Explanation
On 18 January 2021, you requested the Minister of General Affairs to publish (among other things) all draft versions of the letter to Parliament mentioned above. Following the ruling of the Central Netherlands District Court of 10 June 2022, this minister forwarded your request to me for consideration. The text of your request, where relevant, was as follows:
“I request a copy of the following documents:
- all draft versions of the letter to Parliament with the government's response to the report “Unprecedented injustice”
Department of Legal Affairs
Date
March 5, 2024
Our feature
2024-0000198487
Page 2 of 3
I made a decision on your request on March 20, 2023, and did not disclose any documents. You then lodged an objection to my decision on March 27, 2023. On July 31, 2023, I decided on your objection and declared the objection unfounded.
Under article 4:6, paragraph 1, of the Awb, when making a new application, after a wholly or partially rejecting decision, an applicant is obliged to state new facts or changing circumstances. If no new facts or changed circumstances are mentioned, the application may be rejected without applying article 4:5 of the Awb with reference to the previous decision.
In order for an administrative body to successfully invoke article 4:6, paragraph 2, of the Awb, there must be (i) an equal application and (ii) new facts or changed circumstances. An equal application exists if the application aims to create the same legal effects as the previous application. In case law, new facts and changed circumstances are defined as follows: (i) facts or circumstances that occurred after the taking of a previous decision, or (ii) facts or circumstances that could not and should therefore be invoked before taking a previous decision, as well as evidence of facts or circumstances already raised that could not and should therefore be presented, provided that they were not suitable for taking a previous decision, if not in advance excluded that these facts or circumstances may affect the correctness of a previous decision.1
In both your request dated January 18, 2021 and in your request dated December 16, 2023, you request the disclosure of all draft versions of the said cabinet response. Your requests are therefore intended to create the same legal effects, so that there is an equal application. This leads to the question whether you included new facts or changed circumstances in your request dated 16 December 2023. Your claim that I wrongly interpreted your request dated 18 January 2021 too narrowly could have already been raised during the intended appeal procedure, or any subsequent legal remedies, and this has not been proven. Your WOO request dated December 16, 2023 therefore does not contain any new facts or changed circumstances. The objection and appeal procedures have been created by the legislator to settle substantive disputes regarding a decision. Making a new, materially similar request is not the appropriate way to do this. That is why I am discontinuing your WOO request dated December 16, 2023, under article 4:6, paragraph 2 of the Awb, and refer you to my substantive decisions of March 20, 2023 and July 31, 2023.
Publication
This letter is published on rijksoverheid.nl.
1 See, for example, the ruling of the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State of 15 October 2014 (location ECLI:NL:RVS: 2014:3732).
Department of Legal Affairs
Date
March 5, 2024
Our feature
2024-0000198487
Page 3 of 3
Questions
If you have any questions about this decision, please contact the Ministry of Finance using the contact details in the colophon. For more information about the WOO procedure, please visit rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/wet-open-overheid-woo.
Sincerely,
The Secretary of State for Finance — Surcharges and Customs
on behalf of this,
mw. M.R. Schoch
Director of General Fiscal Policy
Objection clause
The person whose interests are directly involved in this decision may object to this decision. This can be done by submitting a motivated appeal to the Minister of Finance, for the attention of the Department of Legal Affairs, P.O. Box 20201, 2500 EE The Hague, within six weeks of the date of sending this decision. The appeal must be signed and contain at least the following:
a. name and address of the submitter;
b. the date;
c. a description of the decision against which the objection is directed;
d. a statement of the reasons why you are unable to agree with the decision.
You can also email your appeal to: BezwaarenberoepWOO@minfin.nl. The choice is yours. Each method has advantages and disadvantages. With a registered letter, you can demonstrate when you filed the objection. Do you still use email? Please note that you may experience technical issues. Also, the email is not a secure connection. Written transmission is therefore safer for sensitive data.