I would say "no".
For years I tried to get access to my own allegedly existing file in the Professional Conduct Committee, New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division, 3rd Judicial Department (hereinafter PCC), and to the file of my husband in that same organization.
By Judiciary Law 90(10), my husband's file must be available to the public anyway, because my husband's license was taken in July of 2011.
Yet, nearly 3 years down the road my husband or I still cannot get access to his own file.
One can get access to his or her own file in the FBI, but not in the Professional Conduct Committee.
There is no discovery in attorney disciplinary procedure, PCC claims, and they are not under Freedom of information law (FOIL) because they are allegedly part of the judiciary (which raises interesting questions as to how can the same judiciary be the prosecutor and the adjudicator - on top of being the legislator of the rules), and as to my requests under Judiciary Law 255 or due process of law, PCC just bluntly denies access, period.
So I had to sue PCC on behalf of my husband for access to his own file, long after disbarment, while the file is presumed now to be public record.
And the lawsuit proceeds in federal court.
And they still do not give access to my husband's own file.
And at this time they still do not give me access to my allegedly existing file, while claiming they are relying on contents in that file which are unavailable to me.
Is it a violation of my due process of law? Of course, it is. But who cares? They know that I have no right of appeal (New York does not give it to attorneys), they know that the NYS Court of Appeals will toss any constitutional claims by stating that my constitutional rights are not "substantially" violated, in one arrogant phrase without explanations, as NYS Court of Appeals always does, they know that there are only 9 elderly people on the U.S. Supreme Court to deal with petitions for a writ of certiorari from 50 states and that my chances of getting in front of the U.S. Supreme court are worse than for a camel to get through the needle's eye.
But - the mystery of the archive of PCC, or of its existence, remains, and, as a naturally curious person, I want to see it.
It is very difficult to give somebody something which does not exist.
New York State Governor Cuomo knows it and is using it or is about to use this wise approach of timely destroying public records to prevent inadvertent nosy citizens from learning what is not safe for their little minds to know, or to keep public records in his employees' private e-mail accounts.
New York State Office of Court Administration also is using the "do not create, stall access or destroy the evidence" approach for quite a while, and that is on my own knowledge.
But - if PCC uses the "Cuomo approach", then maybe, just maybe, my file and my husband's file still exist? Maybe it is tucked away in the closet of a PCC employee's home? Or in their garage? Attic? Barn? Shed? Dog house? Chicken coup?
Can anybody who ever had access to the mysterious Ali Baba's Cave tell me if the treasure (PCC's archive) even exists?
Or do they feed all their documents, if they are even created, into a shredder or a dustbin and then use the fact that the court (which they are part of) always turns a blind eye on any of their shenanigans, no matter how bad, and believes their statements as to the alleged contents of their allegedly existing archive without any evidence of that existence?
Open, Simsim!
Oh, Treasure, do you still exist?
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