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Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Courts - "Proposal would open Kentucky judicial branch's records"
Andrew Wolfson reports today in the Louisville Courier Journal:
Want to know how much the Kentucky Bar Association paid an outside lawyer last year to investigate its president?Don't bother asking bar officials. They're not telling.
Curious about what Jefferson County circuit judges are discussing at their monthly meetings?
Don't bother asking the judges for their minutes. They don't have to give them to you.
The reason is that for more than 30 years, the state Supreme Court has maintained that the Kentucky Open Records Act doesn't apply to judicial branch agencies, such as the state bar association.
But that's about to change.
Following the lead of high courts in many other states, John Minton Jr., chief justice of Kentucky, is expected to propose new open-records rules for the judiciary later this year. * * *
The new rules wouldn't apply to court records, which are already open, or change the confidentiality rules in the disciplinary process for lawyers and judges.
But they may open administrative records of Supreme Court agencies, which include the KBA, the Board of Bar Examiners and the Judicial Conduct Commission.
It's a long overdue change, said John Nelson, executive editor of the Danville Advocate and a former president of the Kentucky Press Association. * * *
Since the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled in 1978 that court records "are inseparable from the judicial function itself, and are not subject to statutory regulation," the Administrative Office of the Court and some other agencies have released certain records voluntarily.
But there are no rules requiring their release or governing how long they may wait to reply.
The open-records act requires that executive and legislative agencies respond to requests within three days.
Nelson said excluding judicial records from the sunshine law never made sense: "I have never heard of a justification, if there is one."
Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 18, 2009 08:14 AM
Posted to Courts in general