Court Opinion

ID: 9766014
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:28:42.656676+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:18.488404
License: Public Domain

*388ROBERTS, Justice
(dissenting).
The majority grants a disbarred attorney’s request to have his reinstatement hearing conducted in secret. I dissent.
In 1972, respondent Gerber pled guilty to twelve counts of federal securities fraud involving 1.5 million dollars. He was sentenced to five year probation and voluntarily resigned from the Pennsylvania bar. Although the criminal activity which led to his disbarment is part of the public record, the majority now permits his reinstatement hearing to be held in secret.
A reinstatement hearing is held to determine whether a disbarred attorney is fit to practice law in this Commonwealth. If a disbarred attorney is reinstated, he becomes an officer of the court. Therefore, reinstatement hearings are an integral part of this Court’s obligation to supervise the judicial system. See In re Shigon, 462 Pa. 1, 22, 329 A.2d 235, 246 (1974); McLaughlin v. Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc., 465 Pa. 104, 119, 348 A.2d 376, 383 (1975) (dissenting opinion of Roberts, J.). As such, the hearings are public business and the public has a right to know upon what facts reinstatement is granted or denied. We have no special privilege to authorize this public business to be conducted secretly. As the Supreme Court of the United States stated in Craig v. Harney, 331 U.S. 367, 374, 67 S.Ct. 1249, 1254, 91 L.Ed. 1546 (1947):
“There is no special prerequisite of the judiciary which enables it, as distinguished from other institutions of democratic government, to suppress, edit or censor events which transpire in proceedings before it.”
See Nebraska Press Ass’n v. Stuart, 427 U.S. 539, 96 S. Ct. 2791, 49 L.Ed.2d 683 (1976); Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U.S. 469, 95 S.Ct. 1029, 43 L.Ed.2d 328 (1975).
*389Neither our rules nor common sense require or condone a secret reinstatement hearing which follows a criminal trial and a disciplinary proceeding, both of which had been made public. Honesty in government is promoted when “public business functions under the hard light of full public scrutiny.” Tennessean Newspapers, Inc. v. Federal Housing Administration, 464 F.2d 657, 660 (6th Cir. 1972).
The majority concludes that conducting an open reinstatement hearing would be of no benefit to the public. To the contrary, it is essential to the maintenance of public trust in our legal system that these proceedings be open. If respondent is in fact rehabilitated and entitled to reinstatement, the basis for that determination, which could hardly be detrimental to respondent, should be opened to those interested. The public must know the basis for determining when a disbarred attorney is entitled to reinstatement before the integrity of such hearings can be ensured.
I must also disagree with the majority’s assertion that this Court should recognize whatever interest respondent may have in keeping these proceedings secret. In the circumstances of this case, I can find no justification for the majority’s solicitous protection of respondent from possible public embarrassment.* Compare Cox Broadcasting Corp v. Cohn, supra.
*390No public or private interest is served by the majority’s sanction of unnecessary secrecy, and its only product can be suspicion and mistrust of our willingness and ability to supervise the legal profession. The majority fails to recognize the lesson taught by experience: that openness in public affairs is the foundation of a free society. I dissent.

 The majority incorrectly relies on McLaughlin v. Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc., 465 Pa. 104, 348 A.2d 376 (1975), and ABA Committee on Evaluation of Disciplinary Enforcement, Problems and Recommendations in Disciplinary Enforcement 139 (1970) (“Clark Report”). (See majority opinion, supra at 781 n. 7.) Both of these discuss the privacy interests of practicing attorneys facing disciplinary charges. Here, respondent is not an attorney in good standing but rather one who has been disbarred and is seeking reinstatement. McLaughlin and the Clark Report therefore do not support the majority’s position.
Moreover, I must reiterate my disagreement with the result reached in McLaughlin. There, the majority voluntarily denied itself access to a disciplinary record, and, by so doing, shrouded that court proceeding in a veil of secrecy. See McLaughlin v. Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc., supra at 119, 120 n. 1, 348 A.2d at *390383, 384 n. 1 (dissenting opinion of Roberts, J.). As a result, the majority did not examine that record and denied the public access to important public business. Nothing could be more unwise and contrary to the public interest than the majority’s continued approval of secrecy in court proceedings involving public business.