A policing panel created at the advisement of President Donald Trump violated a federal open meeting law and must stop its work until it adheres to the statue, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
Politico reports that U.S. District Judge John Bates said the administration violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act by placing only current and former law-enforcement personnel on the 18-member commission. The judge also noted that the group was holding closed meetings without advance public notice, which is against the law.
Bates ruled that no recommendations can be submitted to Attorney General William Barr until the panel clears up its legal violations. The commission’s final report was scheduled to be submitted later this month, according to Politico.
The postponement of the panel’s report means it may not be available until after the election. The panel’s membership must be revised as advised in the judge’s 45-page ruling.
A majority of Bates’ ruling draws from a requirement in the 1972 transparency law that federal advisory committees be “fairly balanced” in their make-up. The judge noted that a commission entirely made up of law enforcement could not meet the standard.
“The Court is hard pressed to think of a starker example of non-compliance with FACA’s fair balance requirement than a commission charged with examining broad issues of policing in today’s America that is composed entirely of past and present law enforcement officials,” wrote Bates, ruling on a lawsuit filed in April by the NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund (LDF).
“The Commission includes no members from civil rights groups like LDF. Nor does it include any criminal defense attorney, academic, civic leader, or representative of a community organization or social service organization. Instead, all eighteen Commissioners are current or former law enforcement,” Bates added. “This is precisely the type of imbalance that FACA sought to prevent.”
Bates tossed out the Justice Department’s argument that the panel was exempt from the statue under a 1995 exemption made for committees dealing with issues of joint responsibility between the federal government and state, local, or tribal governments.
Bates said that defining that exemption as broadly as the Justice Department suggested would have “no limiting principle.”
The panel listed 14 hearing sessions along with transcript and audio recording for most of them on the Justice Department’s website. But the judge said the meetings were not announced in advanced as the law requires. His ruling also says the department conceded that meetings would be considered closed if the transparency statue applied.
Bates did reference that one appeals court, the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit, has held that the “fair balance” requirement in FACA is too vague for courts to enforce. But, he said the weight of legal precedent comes down in favor of the provision being susceptible to enforcement by judges.
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