East Suffolk Council Petition Scheme - Petitions - Explanatory notes

East Suffolk Council welcomes the receipt of petitions as a positive initiative for engaging with local communities. However, any petition which in the opinion of the local authority (as advised by the Monitoring Officer) is considered to be vexatious, abusive or otherwise inappropriate or not reasonable will be excluded from the scheme.

Each petition will be looked at on its merits, rather then on the basis of who is submitting the petition, or whether someone thinks there is an ulterior motive for the submission of the petition.

Vexatious/persistent

Deciding whether a request is vexatious is a flexible balancing exercise, taking into account all circumstances of the case. There is no rigid test or definition for such complaints but the key over-riding question will be whether the petition request is likely to cause distress, disruption or irritation without any proper or justified cause.

Issues around persistency are implied by this definition. However a persistent request may well be entirely valid - it may relate to a systematic problem that has not been effectively resolved. Similarly, a request which some members may regard as vexatious, may actually be entirely responsible.

Discriminatory

A modern interpretation of the word ‘discrimination’ is provided at Section 45 of the Equality Act 2006, in relation to religion and belief, as follows:

A person (A) discriminates against another (B) if on the grounds of the religion or belief of (B) or of any other person except (A), treats (B) less favourably than s/he treats others. This definition can easily be amended to deal with other forms of discrimination, such as discrimination for reasons of sex and / or race. So a discriminatory petition might be one which implies or states that a group of people or an area receives better, or worse, services on account of that group’s predominant religion, race, sex or other characteristic, as covered by discrimination legislation.

Inappropriate

Matters which may be considered ‘inappropriate’ include those involving ongoing legal proceedings or which target individual members of a community.

Not reasonable

In the interests of transparency, the council will not interpret ‘not reasonable’ as being the same as the legal word ‘unreasonable’. It is best to consider ‘not reasonable’ as a qualifier to the word ‘vexatious’, as a vexatious request is likely not to be reasonable and a request that is not reasonable is likely to be vexatious.