In her nine-page motion, Sablan, who is representing herself, said the law doesn’t allow the court to issue a stay unless “there is a substantial probability that opening the records for inspection will result in significant damage.”
Sablan wants to know how much taxpayer money is being spent on the governor’s federalization lawsuit and where the funding is coming from.
At present, she added, “the record is devoid of any finding of ‘substantial probability’ or evidence of ‘significant damage’ [if the documents are disclosed]. Accordingly, absent these mandatory and prerequisite findings, the instant stay clearly violates applicable and binding commonwealth law and…must be lifted.”
The law “simply does not allow this court the discretion to grant a stay where the government has failed to meet its prerequisite burden. Moreover, public policy favoring the spirit of transparency all but compels this court to end the secrecy and compel reasonable disclosure,” said Sablan, Ind.-Saipan.
Trial court ruling
The trial court on June 18 ruled in favor of the lawmaker and ordered the administration to disclose the records containing information regarding funding sources, summaries of billing invoices, and expenditures for the governor’s lawsuit against the U.S. government over the federalization law.
The records were supposed to be released by 11:30 a.m. on June 20, but Assistant Attorney General Brad Huesman on June 19 filed a motion in the trial and high courts for stay of the order releasing documents.
The trial court denied the motion, which the high court granted.
Justice Alex Castro then ordered the administration to file its opening brief no later than 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, July 2. Sablan must file her brief no later than 4:30 p.m. on Friday, July 10.
Unnecessary
In her motion, Sablan noted that “[a]fter a number of briefings and hearings on the case, including a…review of all the requested records, [the administration] clearly was unable to persuade the trial court that the billing summaries, voucher/payment records, memoranda and letters between the governor, the secretary of finance, and the Bank of Guam, journal entries reflecting fund transfers, and the governor’s account ledger should not be disclosed. The trial court found that…nondisclosure was clearly unnecessary to protect a vital government function and disclosure of such records could in no way disadvantage the CNMI in the…lawsuit.”
The trial court “observed that the CNMI government’s estimated litigation budget, government attorney salaries, and general budget are already matters of public knowledge, and that nothing in the records it had ordered for release indicated a maximum amount that the CNMI government would be willing to pay for litigation, nor would these records reveal strategy, litigation intention, or any information that would create a disadvantage for the CNMI in the…litigation,” Sablan said.
She described the administration’s arguments as “illogical,” “insufficient” and “stale,” and its motion for stay “an obvious dilatory tactic that violates the spirit and intent of the Open Government Act.”
The administration, she said, is merely asking “for more time to perfect” its arguments that were already rejected by the trial court.
The administration, moreover, is ignoring “the express legislative intent that the Open Government Act shall be construed in favor of open records….”
Open records
Sablan asked the high court “to consider that in liberally construing the Open Government Act in favor of open records, a stay need not and should not be granted…when [the administration has] clearly failed to produce any evidence before this court within the 48-hour timeframe established by law that there is a substantial probability of significant damage in disclosure.”
She added, “Further staying disclosure despite [the administration’s] clear failure to produce within the 48-hour timeframe provided by law any evidence to support a court determination of substantial probability of significant harm would only facilitate [the administration’s] efforts to continue to operate in secrecy, frustrate the trial court’s order, and obstruct the rule of law.”
She said the Open Government Act declares that “[t]he people of the commonwealth do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them…. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created.”
