Severability
(1) If a request for access is made to a record of a private body containing information which may or must be refused in terms of any provision of Chapter 4 of this Part, every part of the record which— (a) does not contain; and (b) can reasonably be severed from any part that contains, any such information must, despite any other provision of this Act, be disclosed.
(2) If a request for access to— (a) a part of a record is granted; and (b) the other part of the record is refused, as contemplated in subsection (1), the provisions of section 56(2) apply to paragraph (a) of this subsection and the provisions of section 56(3) apply to paragraph (b) of this subsection.
What this means in practice
- If only part of a record is refusable, the rest must still be disclosed where it can reasonably be severed.
- You cannot refuse a whole document because one part is protected.
- The grant and refusal notice rules (s.56(2) and (3)) apply to the disclosed and withheld parts respectively.
PopiGuard supports redaction-and-release decisions — disclosing what must be disclosed while protecting what may be withheld.