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THE COUNTY LEGISLATURE DID NOT HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO ADOPT A RESOLUTION REQUIRING THE DISCLOSURE OF AN ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S FINANCIAL INFORMATION AFTER THE COUNTY ETHICS COMMITTEE DENIED THE DISCLOSURE-REQUEST MADE BY A NEWSPAPER; THE LEGISLATURE USURPED THE POWER OF A REVIEWING COURT (SECOND DEPT).

The Second Department annulled a resolution adopted by the Suffolk County Legislature specifically allowing the publication of the financial disclosure information provided to the County Ethics Board by an assistant district attorney. A newspaper initially made the request of the Ethics Board. The request was denied and the newspaper did not seek review of the denial. The Legislature, in direct response to the denial of the newspaper’s request,  took it upon itself to adopt the resolution allowing the information to be made public. The Second Department held that the Legislature did not have the authority to essentially act as a reviewing court by passing a resolution addressed to a specific circumstance:

The County Legislature was established to determine County policies and to exercise other functions as may be assigned to it by law … . The County Legislature exercises the County’s powers of local legislation and appropriations … . The County Legislature has broad powers to enact local legislation. However, it is fundamental that legislative power does not extend so far as to apply the rules of law to particular cases, as the power to adjudicate the applicability of the law to individual situations is a judicial power … . A legislative body may not usurp a court’s power to interpret and apply the law to the particular circumstances before it … . Thus, it was beyond the authority of the County Legislature to determine that the Ethics Board’s decision to withhold the petitioner’s financial disclosure statements from public inspection was incorrect and to take it upon itself to obtain the statements and provide for their public release. Put another way, the County Legislature wrongly placed itself in the position of a reviewing court. This is particularly disturbing where the purportedly aggrieved newspaper took no steps to vindicate its rights to disclosure of the financial statements by the Ethics Board. Matter of Prudenti v Suffolk County Legislature, 2019 NY Slip Op 05779, Second Dept 7-24-19

 

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