When former Gov. Ben Cayetano made his first judicial appointments in 1995, he disclosed the names of the candidates submitted by the Judicial Selection Commission.

"The release of these names opens the process to public scrutiny and ensures the public that their judges are being selected on the basis of qualifications, not politics," Cayetano said in announcing the release of the names the day after he made his appointments.

When former Gov. Linda Lingle was making her first appointments in 2003, she went one step further and released the names when she received them from the commission.

"In her continuing effort to maintain openness in her administration, Gov. Lingle has elected to make the lists available prior to making the appointment," her office said in a news release.

But when Gov. Neil Abercrombie made his first appointment in naming Sabrina McKenna to the Hawaii Supreme Court this year, he refused to disclose the names.

Bucking nearly 16 years of practice, Abercrombie said the release would deter potential candidates from applying for the job.

The governor still refuses to disclose the names on the list for the post won by McKenna, as well as the commission’s lists of candidates for his two other appointments to the Circuit Court bench.

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser has filed a lawsuit seeking a court order directing Abercrombie to release the list of names under the state open-records law.

Abercrombie’s administration opposes the lawsuit and submitted its own request Friday asking the judge to throw out the newspaper’s lawsuit.

Circuit Judge Karl Sakamoto is scheduled to hear the requests Nov. 14.

Cayetano’s announcement when he made his appointments was the first to pierce the secrecy surrounding the names of candidates.

A 1978 Hawaii constitutional amendment established the Judicial Selection Commission to screen applicants and submit the names of judicial candidates to the governor.

The amendment mandated that governors appoint judges from lists of candidates in an effort to emphasize merit and minimize politics in the selection process.

The amendment also said the commission’s deliberations must be "confidential." The commission later adopted rules to extend the confidentiality to its lists.

Govs. George Ariyoshi and John Waihee kept the lists confidential.

But in 1993, the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that while the commission can keep the lists secret, it is within the "sole discretion" of the governor to release the names.

Two years later, Cayetano released the lists when he appointed Walter Kirimitsu to the state appeals court and McKenna and the late John Lim to Circuit Court.

In his dismissal request, Abercrombie submitted lists of judicial candidates that Lingle disclosed during her two four-year terms. He suggested that they show the disclosures deterred some from applying because only 10 individuals were on lists for three vacancies on the Hawaii Supreme Court, 17 for eight vacancies on the Intermediate Court of Appeals and 61 for 17 vacancies at Circuit Court.

But a Star-Advertiser review of news releases not only from Lingle, but also Cayetano, shows that most of the current jurists have been chosen from lists that were made public.

They show:

» Nine of 11 judges on the Hawaii Supreme Court and the Intermediate Court of Appeals have been selected by a process that included the disclosure of the lists of candidates.

Associate Justice Paula Nakayama was picked by Waihee. Abercrombie refuses to disclose the other candidates for McKenna’s position.

» Sakamoto and most of the state’s 33 circuit judges were also picked by a process disclosing the names.

(State district judges are appointed by the chief justice. Current Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald publicizes the names of the judicial candidates when he receives them from the commission, as did his predecessor, Chief Justice Ronald Moon.)

In its request for a court order releasing the names, the Star-Advertiser said Abercrombie cannot prove that the disclosure by his predecessors limited the pool of applicants or that more qualified applicants would have applied if they were guaranteed confidentiality.

The governor cannot show that the judicial appointment process was "frustrated," the basis for his position that the names should be kept confidential, the Star-Advertiser said.

"Rather, the process patently has worked very well," the newspaper said.