The state Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision last week, gave a big gift to those politicians and bureaucrats who want to hide information from the public they serve.
In matters where the government hires a lawyer and there is even a remote possibility that the matter may be the subject of a lawsuit, the court ruled that the public is not entitled to see the work done by the lawyers or the lawyers’ investigators. Not even after the case is resolved.
If a public controversy erupts and you’re a politician or bureaucrat who wants to investigate the matter but hide the results? Hire a lawyer to do it. That way, the court ruled, it’s not a public investigation, but rather attorney work product exempt from disclosure.
Whatever happened to “We the people?” I thought we elected politicians and hired bureaucrats to work for us. Turns out, according to the court majority, the lawyers hired by those bureaucrats and politicians work for them and not for the people.
The court’s four dissenters got it right: The ruling will be “ultimately encouraging public agencies to hide public records from the public.”
The court also endorsed a legal maneuver by public agencies that makes it easier for government to hide records and vastly more costly for requesters to get them.
In the past, if a government refused a public records request, the requester (often a newspaper or individual citizen) risked bearing the cost of litigation if his claim proved unfounded.
If the requester lost, the cost was his. If government lost, it paid the requester’s court costs. The law worked that way so a requester with a legitimate claim had to bear only the cost of copying the documents.
In this new case, the Supreme Court said it’s now OK for local or state jurisdictions to take a public records request immediately to Superior Court to ask if a particular record is subject to public disclosure.
That sounds innocent, but it will have pernicious results.
The court’s new ruling means the requester will always pay to fight the government, even when the citizen’s claim is legitimate.
This government-initiated lawsuit, particularly in the hands of an agency bent on hiding even obvious public records, means a requester will have to spend thousands of dollars (or even tens of thousands) just to get the right to copy documents. There’s no chance of recovering court costs, even if the government is wrong.
The court has turned the law on its head: keeping investigative records away from the public that pays for them and allowing shady governments and agencies to financially bludgeon citizens who have the temerity to ask for records that rightfully belong to them, not the government.
OUR MOST-READ STORY
The Web enables us to count the number of readers for a particular news story.
Mark Briggs, the editor of our Internet site, just finished analyzing Web readership for 2007 and found some interesting data.
The most-read story on our site last year was about three Fircrest families who received death threats and were apparently secretly observed via cell phone. More than 160,000 people saw the story. We believe that makes it the most-viewed story in our Web site’s history.
“That’s more page views than our entire site receives on a slow day,” Briggs said.
Other top stories included the shooting at Foss High School (two of the top 10) and sports, which occupied four spots.
Mark will post the full top 10 list on his blog Monday. It’s located at blogs.thenews tribune.com/online.
BHUTTO ON COVER OF PARADE
We got a note last week from Parade magazine alerting us that an interview with Benazir Bhutto would be the cover story on next Sunday’s magazine.
“All 32 million copies of Parade went to press prior to (her assassination last week), and it is impossible for us to reprint this issue,” said Dave Barber, who is in charge of newspaper relations for the magazine.
The interview makes it clear that Bhutto was acutely aware of the danger she faced.
“I am what the terrorists most fear, a female political leader fighting to bring modernity to Pakistan,” Bhutto said. “Now they’re trying to kill me.”
Dave Zeeck: 253-597-8434
david.zeeck@thenewstribune.com
blogs.thenewstribune.com/editors/
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