Maine’s high court weighing comments on limiting public access to digital records

"Maine’s top judge has said she wants the state’s courts to be more open and accessible to the public – including allowing for online access to records the public would otherwise have to view at a courthouse.

“The public deserves electronic access to its government,” Leigh Saufley, chief justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, told the Legislature in 2014, when it was considering the Judicial Branch’s request for $15 million from taxpayers to fund an electronic system for keeping court records.

“I can go online from anywhere and find the pending bills, the sponsors and committee assignments, the status of those bills, both in the committee and on the floor, the language of proposed amendments, committee hearing dates, and all written testimony,” Saufley said of the Legislature’s records system. “We seek nothing less for Maine people’s access to justice...”

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