TFred
Regular Member
Marginally on topic here, as many of our points of discussion count on access to court case information. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
TFred
TFred
No basis for Virginia Supreme Court to withhold records, state council says
Statewide court records maintained by the Supreme Court of Virginia should be publicly available in compiled form, according to an opinion issued by the state's Freedom of Information Advisory Council.
The Supreme Court's Office of the Executive Secretary refused to release compiled court records to the Daily Press and instead required case-by-case requests. The Daily Press has been pushing for access to the entire database for nearly a year, arguing that the information is a public record with critical information about how well and fairly the state's courts work.
[...]
"Denying access to the complete database while at the same time allowing access to individual case entries does not appear to serve any public purchase, but instead acts as an artificial impediment to access to public records, which stands in contradiction to the stated purposes of FOIA," the council opinion said.
Statewide court records maintained by the Supreme Court of Virginia should be publicly available in compiled form, according to an opinion issued by the state's Freedom of Information Advisory Council.
The Supreme Court's Office of the Executive Secretary refused to release compiled court records to the Daily Press and instead required case-by-case requests. The Daily Press has been pushing for access to the entire database for nearly a year, arguing that the information is a public record with critical information about how well and fairly the state's courts work.
[...]
"Denying access to the complete database while at the same time allowing access to individual case entries does not appear to serve any public purchase, but instead acts as an artificial impediment to access to public records, which stands in contradiction to the stated purposes of FOIA," the council opinion said.