October 2005

Two Kauai Court Cases to Follow

Judicial Activists - Follow up on Sunshine

• County of Kauai verus Office of Information Practices - The next court date for case County of Kauai versus OIP is Tuesday Oct.25 at 1 p.m. in 5th Circuit court (I think that is the upstairs court # 6 at the new court building but I am not sure). You should confirm when you arrive the correct court (Judge Masuoka).

Judicial Activists - Follow up on March 15 Drug Arrests

• State of Hawaii versus Nathan Prather, D. Hibbitts and Jay Robertson
  Hoike Executive Director Jay Robertson's case 5PC05-1-00163 with two other defendants with same counts (State of Hawaii versus Nathan Prather /Hibbitt/Robertson) will be Nov. 3, 5th Circuit court #6 upstairs at 8:30 am. All three have been charged with a felony, Cause of Action: Promotion of Marijuana 2nd degree, and possession of drug paraphenalia . Bail posted is $20,000 for each. This all came from arrest made March 15 at J Robertson's home in Koloa where 10-pound shipment of marijuana was found. TGI did a great front page story on this.

FYI - Daniel Hempey is Robertson atty; C. Dennemeyer is Prather's atty; and Sam King,Jr. is Hibbitts atty. Craig DeCosta is prosecutor.

Hempey has filed a motion to quash the search warrant & evidence (9/8/05) and Judge is going hear DeCosta argue against this motion Nov. 3. All this information is available online at the Judiciary Website.

Hope to see you all there.

Community activists respectfully disagree with Judge Masuoka

League of Women Voters of Kaua'i County • Society of Professional Journalists, Hawai'i Chapter Right To Know Committee • League of Women Voters of Hawai'i • Big Island Press Club Citizen Voice • Hawai'i Pro-Democracy Initiative • Honolulu Community-Media Council 2176 Aha Niu Place • Honolulu, Hawai'i 96821 • 808-732-7598 • _bkeever@hawaii.rr.com

_October 10, 2005

PRESS RELEASE

Contact: Beverly Ann Keever, 732-7598

_FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE _

*Statement on Kaua'i Court Ruling Allowing Agencies to Challenge OIP *

Open government and journalists group leaders issued a public statement today in response to a recent court ruling on the open records law. The leaders and their organizations include: Right To Committee, League of Women Voters of Hawai’i, League of Women Voters of Kaua’i County, Society of Professional Journalists Hawai’i Chapter, Big Island Press Club, Citizen Voice, Hawai’i Pro-Democracy Initiative, and Honolulu Community-Media Council.

The statement of these groups follows:

Before 1989, people had to sue their government to force it to release a record that should be public. Fortunately, that year the Legislature amended the Hawai’i open records law to allow the public to appeal a records denial to a state agency – the Office of Information Practices.

If OIP upheld a denial, the requestor could still appeal to circuit court. But, as HRS section 92F-15.5(b) states, if OIP’s “decision is to disclose, the Office of Information Practices shall notify the person and the agency, and the agency shall make the record available.”

Sounds straightforward and clear. But a senior judge on Kaua’i thinks otherwise.

Earlier this year, the Kaua’i County Council refused to release executive session minutes requested by Kaua’i residents and a journalist. On appeal, OIP reviewed the minutes and ruled that the records must be made public.

Instead of providing the minutes, the Council challenged the ruling by filing a lawsuit in June. Although the Council’s right to file the lawsuit was questioned, two months later Kaua’i Judge George Masuoka ruled that an agency is allowed to appeal an OIP ruling to a court.

We must respectfully disagree, because the legislative intent of the law could not have been clearer. Three legislative committees reviewed the bill and stated their intent in committee reports, all of which contained the following identical language.

“Your Committee wishes to emphasize that while a person has a right to bring a civil action to circuit court to appeal a denial of access to a government record, a government agency dissatisfied with an administrative ruling by the OIP does not have the right to bring an action in circuit court to contest the OIP ruling.”

We believe the open records law and the intent of its drafters has been misunderstood. We hope an appeal to the highest court isn’t necessary to fulfill the policy intent of Hawai’i’s open records law. Documents on this issue are online at www.newhawaii.org.

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