Arizona has some of the most stringent open records laws in the nation.

The Arizona Public Records Law states that “public records and other matters in the custody of any officer shall be open to inspection by any person at all times during office hours.”

Anyone requesting public information must receive it in a reasonable amount of time. This is where public officials have been able to subvert the intent of the law. What’s reasonable – one day, a week, a month? The time frame for the release of public records has been more clearly defined with a recent ruling by the Arizona Court of Appeals. Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services reported in the Arizona Republic that the court ruled Tuesday that our government can’t make people wait for weeks or months for public records.

“In a unanimous decision,” Fischer wrote, “the judges said Arizona’s Public Records law, unlike some other states, requires that the custodian of the items sought ‘shall promptly furnish such copies, photographs or printouts.’ And it says any request that is not promptly honored is deemed to have been denied.”

The judges also said public employees can’t get around the Public Records law’s new prompt response ruling by blaming an employee who ignored the request.

There have been many abuses of the “reasonable amount of time” law, but the incident that led to the ruling involved the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department and its refusals to release information to a reporter for a Phoenix weekly newspaper. Fischer reported that a sheriff’s employee said she didn’t respond for 141 days “because she didn’t want to communicate with the reporter,” which is a very lame excuse.

What many public officials do not realize is that, according to Media Law, “Any person wrongfully denied access to public records may bring a special action in Superior Court to obtain such records. If the court finds that the custodian of the public records acted ‘in bad faith, or in any arbitrary or capricious manner’ in withholding access, the court may award attorneys’ fees to the person seeking access to the records.”