Supremes give early gift to open government
The Utah Supreme Court just ordered the state to give some road and right-of-way documents to the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.
Hold on. I know lots of people don't like SUWA. That's OK.
This is a blog about open government. So even if you want to bulldoze, drill and slash and burn SUWA, you might take some heart in the court ruling.
You can read a PDF of that ruling here. The court affirmed two important points.*
— Documents are public unless the law specifically says otherwise.
— Just because the government does something that might get it sued does not mean documents relating to that work are exempt from disclosure under the attorney-work-product rule.
This is the supreme court's second opinion this year concerning the Utah Government Records Access and Management Act.
— NC
*I am not an attorney and frequently remind myself of that.
