Ministry of Justice refuse access to public domain information

Registry Trust has a contract with the Ministry of Justice to administer the Register of County Court Judgments. This is a public register which is supposed to be freely available to the public. However, it is not. The information is sold to credit reference agencies. In their contracts Registry Trust specifically define “public domain information” and include in the list “case number” (now known as claim number). However, they refused to supply me with details of judgments by reference to case numbers, claiming that case numbers were not in the public domain!

Here is the relevant section of their contract: