P.R. Laws tit. 4, § 74a
The entire evaluation process of the bodies created by this chapter for judges and judge candidates shall be subject to norms of strict confidentiality, as well as any information compiled and the documents and reports produced as a result thereof. Any official or employee of the bodies created hereby shall state under oath that he/she will not disclose the confidential information obtained as a part of his/her functions. Any person, employee or public official, whether from the Executive, Legislative or Judiciary Branch, who deliberately or because of negligence or omission, makes public or offers confidential information whose disclosure is not authorized by this chapter, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. Any member, official or employee of the Governor’s Evaluating Committee for Judiciary Appointments or the Judiciary Evaluation Office or the Judiciary Appointments Office, who requests or provides information regarding the past or present political beliefs, affiliation or promotion in the judicature of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, with the intention of discriminating against the candidate because of his/her political affiliation, shall also be guilty of a misdemeanor.
Only the Chief Justice, the Supreme Court Associate Justices, the Administrative Director of the Office of Courts Administration, and by mediation of the latter, the Director of the Judiciary Studies Institute shall have access to the Commission, in what corresponds to the development of judiciary education programs and activities. What is provided above shall be no hindrance for the Governor, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, or their authorized representatives, to be able to visit, once a year, within the thirty (30) days that follow the request from one of them, the Commission’s offices jointly, to evaluate its operation and the implementation of the judiciary evaluation process, including the inspection of those documents and files that will expedite said procedure.
Only its own members, the Executive Director, his/her personnel and the Governor, shall have access to the information and documentation thereof in the evaluation process carried out by the Evaluating Committee.
Notwithstanding the above provisions, any letters of recommendation that are remitted to the Governor by the various evaluating bodies as a part of the process of appointment, renomination and promotion of judges shall be accessible to the public. Equally accessible to the public, shall be any evaluation report of a judge, provided the evaluated judge expressly authorizes its disclosure.
History —Dec. 5, 1991, No. 91, § 21.