Section 54 - Parties

If an authorised officer or Principal Officer makes a decision on a request on behalf of the agency, the agency is taken to have made the decision.³ This means the agency is a party to a Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) review proceeding instead of the individual agency officer who made the decision.

If a decision on a request is not provided to the applicant within the required time, the agency or Minister is deemed to have refused access to the requested documents.⁴ If an applicant applies to VCAT on this deemed refusal, the agency or Minister to whom the request was made is a party to the review proceeding.

The Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner (OVIC) is not a party to a VCAT review.⁸ This includes where the applicant is seeking a review of OVIC’s review decision. The parties will be the applicant and the agency or Minister that made the decision.

VCAT may call on OVIC to assist in a review.⁹

OVIC can only be a party to a VCAT review proceeding where the applicant made a request to OVIC for access to a document, the Information Commissioner (as OVIC’s Principal Officer) refused access to it, and the applicant applied for a review of the decision.¹⁰