Sablan sues Fitial, Inos, Baka to compel disclosure

Rep. Tina E. Sablan has decided to take Gov. Benigno R. Fitial to court to compel the administration to disclose where it is getting the money to fund the lawsuit against federalization.

Sablan filed without a lawyer a petition for mandamus in the Superior Court last Friday. She named Finance Secretary Eloy Inos and acting Attorney General Gregory Baka as co-defendants.

Press secretary Charles Reyes Jr. told Saipan Tribune yesterday that the administration is going to respond to the lawsuit in court.

The congresswoman asked the Superior Court to give her lawsuit priority over other civil cases and to set an immediate hearing.

She sought an order mandating Fitial, Inos, and Baka to fulfill their obligations under CNMI law by making available the requested materials within 48 hours of the court’s decision.

Sablan requested the court to find the defendants liable for court costs and any civil penalties over their failure to comply with her requests.

She also asked the court to order the defendants not to transfer, alter, or destroy the public records that she has been seeking for inspection or examination.

In a statement, Sablan appealed to the court to order the disclosure of certain records relating to funds used in Fitial’s lawsuit against the federal government pursuant to the Open Government Act.

“The Administration has thus far declined to disclose funding sources, contracts with outside legal counsel, amounts paid to date, and other types of information related to the governor’s lawsuit which many citizens, myself included, believe should be open to the public,” she said.

In her petition, Sablan asserted that the refusal of Fitial, Baka, and Inos to disclose records identifying funding sources and contracts connected to the lawsuit that has been filed on behalf of the CNMI people “is a violation of the Open Government Act.”

The lawmaker requested copies of contracts related to the lawsuit against federalization, including the contract between the CNMI government and law firm Jenner & Block; documents relating to payments of the contracts; documents detailing funding sources for the contracts; and documents identifying where money was reprogrammed in order to finance the lawsuit.

Baka has declined to produce the records. He asserted that such documents are exempt from the OGA because they are related to a pending issue in the lawsuit and would not be discoverable by the United States.

Baka’s decision had prompted Sablan to file last Dec. 11 the same OGA request with Finance, seeking records related to funding sources for Fitial’s lawsuit.

In a Dec. 19, 2008, letter, Inos also declined Sablan’s request, explaining that the documents are exempt from disclosure under the OGA “because they are not discoverable by the United States under the attorney-client privilege.”

Inos said documentation identifying funding sources and contracts between the CNMI and outside litigation counsel “has been made indisputably relevant to the Section 903 controversy” by the lawmaker’s letter to the governor dated Oct. 16, 2008.

Inos said the exemption from OGA disclosure applies only while the Commonwealth’s Section 903 litigation remains pending.

Once the lawsuit is concluded, the Finance Secretary said, a provision of the OGA will no longer pose a delay to Sablan’s inspection of the records.