Hawaii’s judiciary announced today it is waiving a fee charged for public viewing of court records as it reviews whether the charge is appropriate.

Judiciary spokeswoman Marsha Kitagawa told The Associated Press the $5 “search fee” is being suspended for anyone seeking to look at on-site district court documents.

“We recognize and appreciate the concern that imposing fees may diminish access to records,” Administrative Director of the Courts Rodney Maile wrote in a letter to a journalism website. “We understand the need for public court records to be as accessible as possible.”

Public government records, including court files, are generally available for review without charge in most states and jurisdictions. Fees to copy documents are more widespread — in Hawaii’s courts, people must pay $1 for the first page and 50 cents for every additional page.

Court systems in eight other states have the authority to charge fees to access court records, Kitagawa said.

The fee was first reported by journalism website Honolulu Civil Beat last month after a court clerk told a reporter he would have to pay $5 per case to examine about 50 cases.

The judiciary will review its fee rules to balance the need for access with the administrative costs of document search requests, Maile wrote in his letter to Honolulu Civil Beat.

Honolulu media attorney Jeff Portnoy said the courts also should remove the $5 fee to search for documents considered to be “off-site,” especially those located on a different floor of a courthouse.

“Courts are supposed to be open, and free access should be legally and morally required,” Portnoy said. “Simply having access to review a file should be free. That rule is ridiculous.”

It’s unclear how much money was raised by the fee last year because Oahu and Maui county clerks were unable to extract the amount from their accounting, Kitagawa said.

But on Oahu alone, more than 4,500 document requests were processed in 2009 for certification of criminal and traffic records, certification of civil records, request for copies and review of civil documents, according to court records.

If the $5 search fee were applied on each of those requests, it would have raised about $22,500. The fees resulted in collections of $160 on the Big Island and $140 on Kauai last year.

The fees were never intended to deter retrieval of records, Maile wrote in his letter. Instead, he said the fee was imposed to help defray court costs.

During the judiciary’s review of its fees, it will gather comments from media organizations and the general public.