Teacher wins FOIA access to TSC records as judge halts proceedings

High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad has ad­mon­ished pub­lic au­thor­i­ties to em­brace trans­paren­cy af­ter or­der­ing the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (TSC) to re­lease doc­u­ments re­quest­ed un­der the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act (FOIA).

In a 25-page judg­ment de­liv­ered yes­ter­day, Seep­er­sad said pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions can­not re­ly on ad­min­is­tra­tive con­ve­nience or un­sup­port­ed claims of con­fi­den­tial­i­ty to de­ny cit­i­zens ac­cess to in­for­ma­tion to which they are legal­ly en­ti­tled.

“Pub­lic pow­er is ac­com­pa­nied by pub­lic re­spon­si­bil­i­ty,” Seep­er­sad stat­ed.