Bard v Information Commissioner: Tribunal upholds vexatious finding on eight FOIA requests to the MoJ

The First-tier Tribunal has dismissed an appeal against a decision notice holding eight freedom of information requests to the Ministry of Justice vexatious, finding that the appellant was using the Act as an improper mechanism to challenge the validity of court orders made against him.

In Marcel Peter Bard v The Information Commissioner [2026] UKFTT 1012 (GRC), a panel comprising Judge Scherbel-Ball, Dr Mann and Ms Wolf reached a unanimous conclusion upholding decision notice IC-317819-Z0F4 of 21 November 2024. The decision was given on 9 July 2026. The appellant attended the video hearing in person. The Commissioner did not attend.

The requests

Between 4 April and 21 May 2024 the appellant submitted eight requests to the MoJ, comprising more than forty sub-questions. They sought, among other things, the full names of judges said to be confirmed and signed under the oath of allegiance in the Promissory Oaths Act 1868 at the county courts at Gateshead, Newcastle upon Tyne and Sunderland; clarification of whether the correct designation was "County Court at Newcastle Upon Tyne" or "County Court, Newcastle upon Tyne"; and confirmation, in respect of a possession order, an injunction and a restraining order, that no forgery contrary to section 9 of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981 had been involved in their making.

The MoJ refused under section 14(1), and the Commissioner upheld that position, characterising the requests as an attempt to challenge the authenticity or lawfulness of court orders through a route the legislation was never intended to provide.

The hearing

The appeal had been listed once before, on 7 May 2026, when the appellant sought to conduct the hearing from a stairwell. It was relisted before the same panel.

The appellant alleged an extensive fraud involving the wrongful transfer of his land, forged court orders, and a civil court service in Newcastle operating as an organised crime group. His evidential base was a fifteen page exhibit supplied minutes before the hearing, identifying discrepancies in court documentation: differing party names between a transcript and the resulting order, an unsigned bailiff certificate, an unsealed injunction, and an email signature capitalising the word "Upon".

The panel's assessment was unsparing. The appellant was exceptionally evasive, unable to give straight answers to simple factual questions, and possessed of a selective recall that could not place whether he had received notice of hearings but could supply their dates with precision. Applying Three Rivers District Council v Bank of England [2004] UKHL 48, the panel held that allegations of bad faith or criminality must be more consistent with their existence than their absence. Nothing advanced came close. The appellant had jumped on every discrepancy to draw the wildest allegations where innocent explanations were at least as probable.

Section 14

Rehearsing the principles from Dransfield, Parker and Soh, the panel confirmed that vexatiousness demands a holistic value judgement, that the threshold is high and objective, and that the criteria of burden, motive, value and distress are themes rather than a checklist.

The complaint that the Commissioner had wrongly bundled the requests failed on three grounds. Criticism of how an investigation was conducted falls outside the Tribunal's section 58 jurisdiction, and the Tribunal has no power to remit to the Commissioner at all, following Information Commissioner v Malnick [2018] UKUT 72 (AAC). The contextual pattern of requests may properly be considered under Dransfield. Eight requests carrying forty sub-questions across a matter of weeks was indicative of vexatiousness, though not determinative.

Section 32 provides an absolute exemption for information held in court records, reflecting the principle in Cape Intermediate Holdings v Dring [2019] UKSC 38 that access to court documents is governed by the common law and court rules rather than FOIA. The open justice argument advanced the appellant's case little, given that he already knew the names of the judges concerned and district judge listings are published by circuit.

The panel found the contrast stark between the lengths taken to establish whether Newcastle upon Tyne is properly a county and the complete absence of any appeal or application to set aside the underlying orders. The private interest had been dressed up as public. The appeal was refused.