The US House of Representatives approved the Open Courts Act of 2020 (OCA) Tuesday, a bill that would make the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system free to the public.
The OCA is a bipartisan effort to make court records “publicly accessible, free of charge and without requiring registration.” In the case of high-volume, for-profit use, reasonable fees will be permitted.
The new bill also aims to make the judiciary’s implementation of the new system easier. However, earlier this week the federal judiciary wrote to the House to express opposition to the OCA. The judiciary reasoned that the implementation would take too long and cost too much. The estimated cost of the new system is $2 billion, as indicated by the Administrative Office of the US Courts, but this cost estimate is disputed. Former government technologists and IT experts estimate a lower cost to build, maintain and develop it.
The passage of the bill in the House comes several months after the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that the judiciary charged “unlawfully excessive fees” for the use of PACER. Next, the Senate will debate the bill.