The law allows too much secrecy in state government. Most ethics complaints involve elected leaders and people running for office, that means the law affords protections that ordinary citizens do not have to the very people citizens need the freedom to question, challenge and criticize.
The legislature has written a sweetheart deal for its members into the law and it needs to be changed.
If a citizen challenges a government official for potentially violating the public trust, the complaint to the state Ethics Commission must be kept secret. The state can fine or imprison anyone who speaks publicly about an ethics complaint.
Lawmakers say the secrecy is needed to prevent politically-motivated or unfounded allegations from being made public.
But there is no gag order to protect an average citizen from the outrageous, politically-motivated, personally-motivated, unfounded, unfair, unproven allegations that can be made in a lawsuit.
There is no gag order to protect an average citizen from unfounded, untried claims made in a criminal indictment or arrest warrant.
State law that gags information about ethics complaints violates the public's right to know and the public's right to free speech.
The state Supreme Court ruled that The Gaffney Ledger did not violate state ethics laws by publishing a story saying it was cleared of an earlier ethics complaint.
The complaint began with an allegation that the newspaper published a political ad without identifying who paid for it, then wrote a story about it when the complaint was dismissed. The justices unanimously ruled that the confidentiality clause for the parties involved in ethics complaints ends once the matter has been dismissed.
That is a step forward, but the confidentiality clause should have been struck down altogether as unconstitutional.