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By declining to fulfil their commitment to open government, they obligingly illustrate its importance.

It’s an innovative piece of performance art from a government that normally prefers its performances to be captured by the professional photographer accompanying the prime minister on his morning jogs. But do not dare question the spontaneity of the resulting images, lest your question be described as vexatious.

This is, after all, the bill’s major attack on transparency: Departments can deny Access to Information requests if they consider the request “vexatious” or claim it would “unreasonably interfere with the operations of the government institution.”

“Vexatious” is an interesting word to use. It means, as far as I and the Oxford dictionary are aware, to “cause or tend to cause annoyance, frustration, or worry.” One might think that all inquiries worth making of a government would vex it. As for interference, interfering with the operations of a government institution whose operations can’t withstand scrutiny is the point of making inquiries.

Like Woody Allen’s heart, the government wants what it wants. And all the while, others want to hold it to account for its promise that it will be held to account. This is what the government finds vexing and interfering.

Broken promises are rarely so unpardonable. Whether a promise ought to be kept or ought to never have been made, it may be broken for any number of reasons. Perhaps there wasn’t enough information available at the time it was given. Perhaps the information was available but the context wasn’t properly understood. Or perhaps one party doesn’t have the abilities it thought it did, or the strength to see the promise through.