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NEWS RELEASE: The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

Reporters Committee protests moratorium on release of judicial disclosure forms

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Dec. 09, 1999

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Gregg P. Leslie, (703) 807-2100

(To remove your address from this list,

reply with "remove" in the subject line.)

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has protested the

moratorium instituted by a federal judge that indefinitely halted

the public release of financial disclosure forms of more than 1,600

federal judges.

District Judge William J. Zloch's action in Fort Lauderdale kept

the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts in Washington from

releasing the information to APBnews.com, an online news service,

which said that it planned on releasing the information on its web

site. Zloch chairs the U.S. Judicial Conference's financial

disclosure committee, which meets tomorrow in emergency session to

discuss the moratorium. The letter was faxed today to all fifteen

members of the Judicial Conference Committee on Financial Disclosure.

"The issuance of a secret moratorium barring the legislatively-mandated

disclosure of information violates a legislative enactment, impairs the

media's constitutional right to gather information, and harms the

public's trust in the judicial branch," Reporters Committee Acting

Executive Director Gregg Leslie said in the letter.

Twenty-six federal judges comprise the U.S. Judicial Conference, which

is chaired by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and

which makes policy for all federal courts.

APBnews.com had submitted a request to the Administrative Office of U.S.

Courts for copies of the 1998 financial statements of all federal judges

and intends to put all of the records on its web site, according to

APBnews.com. The news organization said that it mailed a check for

approximately $2,500 to cover copying fees for approximately 12,500

pages of documents in November.

For more information, visit the following links:

http://www.rcfp.org/news/documents/judconf.html

Protest to Judicial Conference over denial of access

to disclosure forms

http://www.rcfp.org/news/1999/1208findiscl.html

Public release of judges' financial disclosures thwarted