Prompted by a February series of articles in the Review-Journal about the sealing of more than 100 cases in Clark County since 2000, members of the Assembly Judiciary Committee last week began consideration of a bill to limit the discretion of Nevada judges in sealing court records.

Assembly Bill 519 would prohibit judges from sealing a court record unless a "preponderance of the evidence" shows that public release of the information would hurt the "public interest" or pose a danger to the public -- and then only if no method other than sealing the court record exists to assure those safeguards.

The proposed law would further require a judge to hold a separate hearing to weigh the merits of sealing any particular record. A judge would be required to notify the public of the hearing beforehand and to allow the public to present evidence at that hearing. Furthermore, the judge would be required to unseal such records at the "earliest possible time after the circumstances necessitating the sealing no longer exist."

"There is a very clear need for it ... particularly when it comes to public health and safety," commented Assemblyman Bernie Anderson, D-Sparks and chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Is it possible to enforce such a law? The authority of the courts is separate and equal to that of the Legislature, and judges are understandably jealous of that independence. State law gives judges no express authority to seal records in the first place -- and Nevada public records law is clear that openness should be the default setting. Yet District Court Chief Judge Kathy Hardcastle and Elizabeth Gonzales, who presides over the court's civil division, asserted in January that judges have "inherent authority" to seal lawsuits at their discretion.

The Legislature does have the power of the purse strings, though withholding pay and other funding from the courts in the face of further intransigence over this issue seems a fairly remote last resort.

Furthermore, the proscriptions in Assembly Bill 519 are necessarily vague -- no law school graduate would be considered worth her salt if she couldn't find a way to justify practically anything on the grounds that it "furthers the public interest."

Still, all that said, no one is proposing here that the Legislature improperly interfere in the actual deliberations and verdicts of the courts. It is to be presumed our judges start with an interest in obeying as well as enforcing the law, and that -- in a state where re-election to the bench always looms -- few judges would want their opponents to paint them as blatantly scorning the will of the people.

But a judge can't very well be accused of violating sensible guidelines on what can be sealed -- until such guidelines are actually spelled out and set in place with the force of law.

The guidelines in AB519 are perfectly reasonable. In a system which depends on justice being done in the open to maintain the public's confidence, there's no possible justification for sealing 115 lawsuits in Clark County alone over the past six years -- cases about which we often know nothing (though in a few we can be pretty sure the interests of the judges or their own families or close friends were being protected) -- cases whose burial isn't even announced to the public.

This is not a bill proposed "just in case" our judges should someday grow hyperactive in tying up their files in red tape and throwing them in a locked basement. It responds to an abuse already well documented. The Legislature should enact this law, and then watch closely to see if judges who have misused their discretion finally "get it."