Whom may an inmate ask for disclosure of information, and when may that body make the inmate pay costs in advance?
General information · Not legal advice
Material to check
In practice material of this kind, we read the disclosure request itself to see which body it was addressed to and by whom, the correspondence showing any earlier requests made during the sentence period and their outcome, and the record showing that the person is serving a sentence.
These are types of material to look for, not evidence already verified by PRO SE.
Where readings differ
One reading takes the first paragraph as the scope of who may act: a person serving a sentence may, under the Act on Public Information Disclosure by Public Institutions, request disclosure from the Minister of Justice, the head of a regional correctional office, or the warden of the institution, so the request reaches whichever of those three bodies the person names.
A second reading stresses the strict conditions on advance payment: only where, during the current sentence period, the person made a request to one of those bodies and then withdrew it without justifiable reason or failed to pay the fee the disclosure Act requires, and that has happened at least the statutory minimum number of times, may the body make a further request subject to advance payment, since the provision says it "may" do so rather than must.
Your judgment
When the file shows a request was withdrawn during the sentence period, what in the record would show whether the reason given was a justifiable one?
PRO SE does not make this decision or keep a case record on this public site.When to reconsider
We look at this again if the provision is amended to change which bodies may be asked or the threshold for advance payment, or if a decision explains what counts as a justifiable reason for withdrawing a request.