Request By:
The Honorable Charles Landrum, Jr.
Secretary
Kentucky State Board of Bar Examiners
716 Lexington Building
201-205 West Short Street
Lexington, Kentucky 40507
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Carl Miller, Assistant Attorney General
Mr. William K. Caylor has appealed to the Attorney General under KRS 61.880 your denial of inspection of a record in your custody.
The request you denied was for the scores Mr. Caylor made on the bar examination, both essay and multi-state portions, and any information pertaining to the multi-state scoring average and the minimum cut-off score used by the Bar Examiners to determine passage of that portion of the exam. Mr. Caylor states that he took the bar exam in the Spring of 1976.
In your letter of response to Mr. Caylor you made reference to KRS 61.878(1)(e). We do not believe that subsection of the statute has any application to the question since it refers only to test questions, scoring keys and other examination data used to administer a licensing examination before the exam is given or if it is to be given again. However, we believe that the Open Records law does not apply to the records at issue on this appeal.
KRS 61.878(1)(j) exempts "public records or information the disclosure of which is prohibited or restricted or otherwise made confidential by enactment of the General Assembly." Court records are given a special status and placed under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Court of Justice by KRS 26A.200 and 26A.220. These statutes apply to all records of agencies of the Court and the Board of Bar Examiners is an agency of the Court created and supervised by the Supreme Court. Rules of the Supreme Court 2.000. If a court or an agency of the Court denies access to a record, the requester should make his appeal to the Chief Justice.
In Ex parte Farley, Ky. 570 S.W.2d 617 (1978), it was held that the custody and control of the records generated by the courts in the course of their work are inseparable from the judicial function itself, and are not subject to statutory regulation. In that case an appeal was made to the Attorney General after the denial of access to certain records by the Administrative Office of the Court. After the Attorney General upheld the denial of the record, suit was filed against the Justices of the Supreme Court in the Franklin Circuit Court. It was held that the Court of Justice is not amenable to the usual appeal procedures of the Open Records Law.
It is our opinion that Mr. Caylor should apply to the Court of Justice for information concerning a consistent policy of handling bar examination records. He is so advised by being sent a copy of this opinion.