By Matt Harvey, The Exponent Telegram
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A unanimous West Virginia Supreme Court capped off the annual national week celebrating government transparency by giving Freedom of Information Act advocates a victory.
In Tax Analysts vs. Matthew Irby, West Virginia State Tax Commissioner, the justices ruled the Tax Department couldn’t just say its audit manuals were off limits without explaining why.
Chief Justice Tim Armstead authored the unanimous opinion that dropped on Friday of Sunshine Week.
The ruling came with three important syllabus points.
— Courts should apply much more latitude in granting disclosure than they do in granting exemptions;
— If a government agency says it doesn’t have to disclose material under an exemption, it has the burden of proof, not the FOIA requester;
— Government agencies that claim exemptions don’t require disclosure must produce a Vaughn index. The index, named after the 1973 federal appellate decision Vaughn vs. Rosen, requires government agencies to “provide a relatively detailed justification as to why each document is exempt, specifically identifying the reason(s) why an exemption under W.Va. Code 29B-1-4 is relevant and correlating the claimed exemption with the particular part of the withheld document to which the claimed exemption applies.”
