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Justin Silverman, the executive director for the New England First Amendment Coalition, said Massachusetts has some of the “the worst public records laws in the country.”
“We need to know whether the government’s doing its job,” Silverman said. “That need becomes ever more acute when you’re dealing with law enforcement agencies.”
Silverman said there is not an easy way to force law compliance outside of the court system, especially for most citizens who do not have the time and money to take their case to court. In 2016, however, the state added an attorney’s fee provision to the law in order to motivate attorneys to take on these cases on a pro bono or contingency fee basis, “a good upward trend,” Silverman said.
“Many other states have other types of remedies and ways to force compliance when an agency doesn’t want to follow the law, Massachusetts certainly doesn’t,” said Silverman, who added that First Amendment rights should be taken “very seriously.” [...]
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