Hear, hear—the Chief Justice wants to reduce the cost of getting hold of court documents!
House Bill 1086 strikes from the books the fee clerks of court can charge for faxing or e-mailing any opinion, record, or paper from the clerk’s files. Right now, any such transmission costs five dollars or a buck a page, whichever is greater. In an era when a 50-page PDF can be transmitted as easily as a two-pager, a buck a page is highway robbery.
Calling the clerk of courts for papers is supposed become obsolete, anyway, when the state finally puts all of its court documents online for public access. The Unified Judicial System has an eCourts portal where documents can be downloaded for ten cents a page with a maximum of $3.00 per document; however, the system is currently restricted to attorneys and abstracters. Boo! Now that House Judiciary is done gabbling about its chairman’s petty and unjust ban on commercial surrogacy, it should amend HB 1086 to mandate the immediate opening of the eCourts portal to all members of the public!
What’s the rationale for limiting access to these public docs?