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Commentary by The Morning News of Northwest Arkansas

Two stories on the news wires regarding Arkansas' Freedom of Information Act caught our attention. In one, an infamous state-prison inmate won a partial victory in her quest to see records regarding a confrontation she had with a correction officer. In another, a newspaper and a county sheriff locked horns over the timely release of public documents.

The timely release of information to the public is an important aspect of the state's sunshine law. In fact, its importance is often overlooked. Both incidents, however, demonstrate that justice delayed can be justice denied.

That aside, Orsini's FOI complaint has to do with a 1997 incident between her and a female prison officer. Orsini lost two weeks of privileges because of the officer's assertion that Orsini disobeyed an order and slammed a door on the officer's hand.

Orsini, citing the FOI law, asked to see documents related to the incident in order to appeal her disciplinary ruling. She was denied access to them by prison officials who claimed the documents were exempt from the FOI Act. She took her complaint to Jefferson County Circuit Court, which waited 10 months before ruling against Orsini, who appealed to the state Supreme Court.

In order to get this hearing, Orsini waited nearly three years -- too long, even for a convicted murderer serving a life sentence. This matter could have been dispensed with much more quickly and easily had the court simply taken the spirit of the FOI Act to heart.

The other incident should be more troubling to most citizens. A newspaper in Magnolia was working on a story about the location of a county-jail inmate. When the paper's reporter asked the sheriff's office for jail logs -- documents clearly accessible under the FOI Act -- officials inaccurately claimed they had three days to provide the material. When the newspaper reporter insisted she receive the material in a more timely manner, a confrontation ensued and the reporter was arrested for interfering with government operations (although she won't be prosecuted).

The "three-day" dodge is an old one in Arkansas and is in part the most abused section of the FOI law. Contrary to the Columbia County sheriff's office's interpretation, the FOI Act indicates that public documents that aren't in active use or in storage must be made available upon request to any citizen. If the documents are in active use or storage, the law says that the custodian of the records must set a time within the next three days to make them available. It clearly does not give a government agency three days to comply with a legal FOI Act request. The newspaper's attorneys are now involved in the matter.

Government officials frequently complain that the FOI Act is too burdensome for them; that citizens use it to harass them, making it a headache they don't need. But the law is the law, and citizens who exercise their rights to observe how government works deserve to have their requests dealt with in a timely manner.