Freedom of information

How to make a Freedom of Information request

Victoria’s Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act) gives you the right to request access to documents held by the Victorian Government and Victorian government agencies, including the Mental Health Tribunal (the Tribunal).  

Under the FOI Act, you can request access to documents (including both paper and electronic documents) held by an agency, no matter how the documentation is stored and can also request that agencies amend or remove incorrect or misleading information they hold about you. The Victorian Government FOI website provides further information to help you access government documents.

The Tribunal’s files can be broadly categorised as patient files that contain documents generated for the purpose of Tribunal hearings, personnel files, operational and administrative files, and general correspondence files. More information about the broad categories of documents we hold is in our statement under Part II of the FOI Act. 

The Tribunal often receives requests for access to personal documents relating to Tribunal hearings, so this guidance focuses on the hearing-related documents we keep. This guidance should be read in conjunction with our privacy policy, which explains the information we keep and how we protect it.  

Information about our documents 

Most FOI requests we receive relate to documents about a person’s own Tribunal hearing. The Tribunal receives hearing documents from health services patients, their family and carers and other patient support persons. 

Hearing related documents we keep 

The Tribunal must keep a permanent record of:

• applications and hearing requests from patients, their representatives and treating mental health services;
• Tribunal orders (reflecting the decision made or the outcome of the hearing) and statements of reasons about those orders; and 
• decisions of another court or tribunal that hears an appeal against a Tribunal decision.

This permanent record includes:

• the type of hearing;
• the name of the person who the hearing is about, and their personal details;
• the treating mental health service;
• the date and place of the hearing;
• the Tribunal members who decided the outcome of a hearing; and
• the decision of the Tribunal and any order made by the Tribunal.

Documents that we only keep temporarily 

Some documents must be kept for two years and are then deleted. These include routine correspondence such as notices of hearing, notifications of cancelled hearings and records used to inform case management activities such as case management briefing notes.

Some records are classified as temporary and can be destroyed after the hearing they relate to. These include duplicates of patient treatment records, clinical reports and letters or written submissions from or on behalf of the patient. You will need to contact the mental health service(s) that treated you for any reports your treating team prepared for your hearing or clinical records.

More information about the hearing-related records the Tribunal holds and the rules about what we need to keep and for how long is set out in the Retention and Disposal Authority for Records of the Mental Health Tribunal.

Before you make a request for access

Please check if the information or document you are seeking is already publicly available, such as on our website or in our annual report. If you can’t find the document or information you are seeking, please contact us and ask if the information or document is available. In many cases we can give you the information without requiring you to make a formal request for access.

How to make an FOI Request

You must make the request in writing. If your request is for documents relating to your own hearings, you will need to include your date of birth and a copy of photo identification with your request.

Please address your request to the FOI Officer, Mental Health Tribunal, either by

• email to mht@mht.vic.gov.au, or 
• post to Level 30, 570 Bourke Street, Melbourne Vic 3000

Please give as much detail as possible, such as the type of document/s and the date created (or a relevant time frame). Your request must be specific enough to allow the Tribunal to identify the documents considered relevant to a request. Where the terms of a request are vague, we will contact you to help determine the type of documents you wish to access.

Considering exemptions

Whenever possible the Tribunal will release documents informally – that is outside the FOI Act and without requiring a fee. However, under the FOI Act we can refuse access to documents in certain circumstances. The most common exemptions that apply to hearing records are the following:

• documents to which a secrecy provision of an Act applies (such as section 355 of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Act 2022)
• documents containing information about the personal affairs of another person
• internal working documents the release of which would be contrary to the public interest.

Timing of requests and appeal processes

An agency must make a decision on a valid request withing 30 days of the date the request was received. If you are dissatisfied with our decision you have the right to seek review from the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner (OVIC). See the OVIC website for more details about this process. You must make a request for a review within 28 days of receiving our decision. OVIC can also receive complaints about an agency’s handling of a request.

If you are seeking access to documents to prepare for a hearing

If you are seeking access to documents to prepare for an upcoming hearing, your mental health service is required to give you access to any documents relevant to the hearing at least two business days before the hearing. For more information please see the access to documents section of our website.

Information Statement

Part II of the FOI Act requires agencies to publish information on their functions, documents, decision-making processes, and access procedures in order to help individuals exercise their right to obtain agency-held information. Whenever possible our Part II statement cross-references parts of this website, Annual Reports and other materials. However it is not an an exhaustive list of all of our publicly available information.

If you cannot find a specific piece of information you can contact the FOI Officer for assistance. Some information held by the Tribunal is not publicly available due to its sensitive nature, but can be accessed through FOI processes.