The Hawaii Ethics Commission must release the financial disclosure state- ments of all members of the University of Hawaii Board of Regents, state Land Use Commission and Agribusiness Development Corp.’s board of directors, a state judge ruled Wednesday.
Peer News LLC, of which online news service Honolulu Civil Beat is a registered trademark, filed a lawsuit in September seeking the release of the disclosures because the Ethics Commission had released only those financial statements that board and commission members had filed after a new state law requiring their release took effect on July 8.
Circuit Judge Rhonda Nishimura on Wednesday granted the request pending a trial on the lawsuit.
Peer News lawyer Brian Black said the order makes a trial unnecessary because the judge gave Peer News what it is asking for in the lawsuit. However, he said the state can appeal the order.
"The Department of the Attorney General is currently reviewing the decision of the court and determining how to proceed," said Anne Lopez, special assistant to the attorney general.
The new law requires the Ethics Commission to make available for public inspection the financial disclosures of the members of 15 state boards and commissions. The disclosures contain the members’ personal financial information including the level and sources of income, investments, debts, business ownerships or interests, and real estate holdings of themselves, their spouses and their dependent children.
State board and commission members were already required by law to file financial disclosure statements with the Ethics Commission annually, but those forms were not made available for public inspection. The commission was required to make available only the disclosure forms of candidates for, and holders of, state elective offices, state department directors, and others in similar positions, their deputies, and the UH president, vice president, chancellors and provosts.
Two UH regents resigned from their posts in June after both houses of the state Legislature unanimously approved the measure.
Gov. Neil Abercrombie allowed the measure to become law without his signature after earlier indicating he might veto it.
Nishimura’s order affects only those disclosure statements filed before July 8 and only for the three agencies Peer News had listed in its lawsuit.
Black said if that anyone else filed a lawsuit seeking the disclosures of the members of the other 12 agencies, the legal issues would involve the same ones that Nishimura has already decided.
