Judge orders NMC to produce papers being asked by Torres

The Superior Court has ordered Northern Marianas College president Carmen Fernandez and her co-defendant in a lawsuit filed by Rep. Stanley T. Torres to produce all public records requested by the lawmaker.

In the same decision issued yesterday, associate judge David A. Wiseman denied a motion to dismiss the allegations against Fernandez and then acting NMI Board of Regents chair Eloise Furey.

Wiseman, however, granted a motion to dismiss the allegations against former assistant attorney general Linda Waugh and NMC private counsel attorney F. Matthew Smith.

In his 10-page order, the judge said that, according to the Open Government Act, all public records shall be available for inspection, “unless inspection of such records is in violation of any Commonwealth or federal law.”

“Here, it is evident from the record that NMC has offered to produce the requested records insofar as they do not violate any protected privacy interests or CNMI or federal law,” Wiseman said.

Wiseman agreed with Torres that the latter is entitled to inspect the requested records.

The judge directed the parties in the case to meet and confer in good faith to establish a method of producing the requested records for inspection by Torres without revealing constitutionally or legally protected records.

In dismissing the allegations against two lawyers named as co-defendants, Wiseman said that, since Waugh and Smith are not officers having custody of the records, the plain language of the complaint “fails to state a cognizable legal claim against either attorney.”

With respect to Fernandez and Furey, Wiseman said the two have the apparent authority to produce or direct the production of records, and should be deemed to be officers having custody pursuant to the OGA.

Torres sued Fernandez, Furey, Waugh, and Smith for allegedly not producing records that he requested pursuant to the Open Government Meetings and Records Act.

In the complaint he filed without a lawyer, Torres asked the court to issue an injunctive order declaring that the defendants’ responses to Torres on June 12, 2007, which was followed by a request for cooperation from the House Committee on Health, Education and Welfare chairman, were deficient and in violation of OGA.

The congressman asked the court to declare that Fernandez’s and Smith’s lack of response to his Aug. 2, 2007, request was in violation of the OGA.

He asked the court to require Fernandez and Smith to discontinue their alleged violation of the OGA.

Torres also sought an order requiring the four to comply with OGA within 48 hours by producing the records “that were unlawfully withheld, along with an explanation of how the claimed exemption applies to the records withheld.”