The hearing is taken off the calendar until further notice, Associate Justice Alexandro C. Castro said in his order.
In the motion filed on Monday, Gov. Benigno R. Fitial and Lt. Gov. Eloy S. Inos, who are represented by Assistant Attorney General Braddock J. Huesman, asked for a rescheduling of the hearing to July 10 or 13.
Huesman said he has a previously scheduled dental appointment at 9:30 a.m. today.
He said his doctor is on island for a limited time and that his dental schedule was originally set for June 2008 but was delayed for reasons beyond his control.
This procedure, he added, has been delayed for over a year, and cancelled once.
He apologized for not informing the court sooner but he said he failed to sync his Blackberry and didn’t discover the conflict until after business hours on Friday.
“This continuance is not sought for delay but so that justice can be done,” he added.
On Monday, Huesman also filed his opposition to Sablan’s motion to reconsider the high court’s stay order.
Huesman said in reaching its decision regarding the Open Government Act, “the trial court improperly shifted the burden of proof and ignored the only established case law it was presented with.”
He said the trial court’s decision must be overturned, and quashing the stay will irrevocably damage the administration’s federalization lawsuit because established case law compels the conclusion that the documents should not be released.
Huesman said the high court should leave the stay in place.
He added that Sablan, who represents herself, relied “heavily on a flawed trial court order. The trial court’s decision is flawed in fundamental ways and therefore, the stay should be left in place until the high court issues its opinion.”
Sablan wants the governor to disclose the amount of money charged by his attorneys, the name of the attorneys and the money paid to the firm representing him in the lawsuit he filed against the U.S. over the federalization law.
Huesman said “under the plain language of the litigation exemption to the Open Government Act, public records are exempt from disclosure if they are: (1) relevant to a controversy to which the government is a party and (2) would not be available to an adverse party under pretrial discovery rules.”
He added, “If this court forces the government to release these documents for public perusal during the current [federalization] litigation, then parties who could not have access to the documents otherwise (i.e. the federal government…) will be entitled to them. Attempting to reach documents not available by courtroom discovery is a tactic which has been tried unsuccessfully by opposing parties (and their agents) to litigation in the past.”
