ACCESS TO INFORMATION AND PROTECTION OF PRIVACY ACT
(as amended January 2008)
(2) This Act shall not limit the information available by law to a party to a legal proceeding.
PART II
ACCESS TO INFORMATION
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Right to information
(1) Subject to section ten, every person shall have a right of access to any record, including
a record containing personal information, that is in the custody or under the control of a public
body:
Provided that such access shall not extend to excluded information.
(2) Where information can be extracted from a record that contains excluded information,
an applicant may have access to the part of the record that is not excluded information.
(3) Nothing contained in this Act shall confer any rights to information or to a record to—
(a) a person who is not a citizen of Zimbabwe, or is not regarded as permanently resident
in Zimbabwe by virtue of the Immigration Act [Chapter 4:02], or is not the holder of a
temporary employment or residence permit or students permit issued in terms of that
Act;
(b) any mass media service which is not registered in terms of this Act, or to a broadcaster
who is not registered in terms of the Broadcasting Services Act [Chapter 12:06]; and
(c) any foreign state or agency thereof.
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Request for record
An applicant who requires access to a record that is in the custody or control of a public
body shall make a request, in writing, to the public body, giving adequate and precise details to
enable the public body to locate the information so requested.
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Fees for access to records and related services by public body
Subject to any exemption prescribed under this Act or any other enactment, an applicant
shall be required to pay such fee as may be so prescribed for—
(a) obtaining access to any record; and
(b) any service rendered in connection with the provision of access to any record by the
public body concerned.
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Duty to assist applicants
(1) The head of a public body shall take every reasonable step to assist an applicant and
shall, subject to section eleven or twelve, respond as soon as is reasonably possible in the circumstances, but not later than thirty days, to each request for access to a record.
(2) Where necessary, the head of a public body shall create a record for an applicant if—
(a) the record can be created from a machine readable record in the custody or under the
control of the public body using its normal computer hardware and software and technical expertise; and
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