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Opinion Letter No. 02-03
May 28, 2002
Records Protected from Disclosure by Court Order
A litigant asked the OIP to opine on the issue of
whether a person can access a record maintained by
a State or county agency when the record is sealed by a court order.
In the process of discovery in the lawsuit, the litigant had subpoenaed
records from the Honolulu
Police Department. The Corporation Counsel had filed a motion to
quash (suppress) the subpoena,
and a judge entered an order limiting the litigant's access to the
records.
The OIP determined that under the Uniform Information Practices
Act (Modified), chapter 92F,
Hawaii Revised Statutes ("UIPA"), the records are not
subject to disclosure. Whether the records
sought were government records (information maintained by an agency),
or personal records
(information about an individual maintained by an agency), there
is an exception to the affirmative duty to disclose government records
where there is a court order protecting those records, and an
exception to the required access to a personal record were so authorized
by a judicial decision.
The OIP noted that the UIPA and the discovery process are two distinct
methods of obtaining access
to documents, and that the UIPA does not require government records
to be disclosed if a judge
determined they are exempted. Therefore, in order to obtain access
to the records, the litigant would
have to follow procedures as required by court rules.
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