Subpoena Duces Tecum - Public Access To Documents Filed With The Court

Public Access To Documents Filed With The Court

The right of the public to access judicial records is fundamental to a democratic state and is analogous to the First Amendment right of freedom of speech and of the press and the Sixth Amendment right to public trials. While the right to access trial records is not absolute, it is framed in presumption of public access to the proceedings and records. United States Code 11, Section 107 (a), of the federal bankruptcy law, is a codification of the common-law general right to inspect judicial records and documents. However, the right is not absolute and may be denied when the entity seeking to view the records has an improper purpose. The general intent of the statute is to favor public access to court documents.

Read more about this topic:  Subpoena Duces Tecum

Famous quotes containing the words public, access, documents and/or court:

    If you have a message you want to send to hell, give it to me; I’ll carry it!
    —Administration in the State of Sout, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    Whilst the rights of all as persons are equal, in virtue of their access to reason, their rights in property are very unequal. One man owns his clothes, and another owns a country.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    Our medieval historians who prefer to rely as much as possible on official documents because the chronicles are unreliable, fall thereby into an occasionally dangerous error. The documents tell us little about the difference in tone which separates us from those times; they let us forget the fervent pathos of medieval life.
    Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)

    As to “Don Juan,” confess ... that it is the sublime of that there sort of writing; it may be bawdy, but is it not good English? It may be profligate, but is it not life, is it not the thing? Could any man have written it who has not lived in the world? and tooled in a post-chaise? in a hackney coach? in a Gondola? against a wall? in a court carriage? in a vis a vis? on a table? and under it?
    George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)