SENATE DOCKET, NO. 2016        FILED ON: 1/16/2009

SENATE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  No. 1790

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

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In the Year Two Thousand Nine

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An Act relative to the disclosure of documents within the Judicial Nominating Commission..

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
 

SECTION 1.Chapter 6 of the General Laws is hereby amended by inserting after Section 39b the following:

Section 39C. The judicial nomination committee, or any succeeding judicial nomination committee or commission, however named and however constituted, shall make available as a public document all endorsement letters, e-mails and notes of any kind, submitted or provided to said committee, commission or members, for any individual appointed as a judicial officer.  Said letters, e-mails and notes shall become a public document through the State House library no later than six days after such a nomination by the governor.

This section shall apply only to that individual who is chosen by the governor to occupy a particular judicial office and does not apply to those applicants who were not nominated.  This section will have no effect on the assurance of confidentiality made by the governor or such advisory committee to applicants in general.  The judicial nominating committee records, or the records of any succeeding judicial nomination committee or commission, however named and however constituted, concerning that individual actually appointed, shall become a public record through the State House library no later than ten days after the individual nominee is sworn in.