For more than 20 years, whistleblower suits under the False Claims Act have been automatically filed under seal and kept hidden for months, sometimes years, while the U.S. Department of Justice investigated the claims and decided whether to intervene.
Last week, lawyers for three advocacy groups tried to convince a federal appeals court that the 1986 law requiring the filing of qui tam complaints to remain secret for at least 60 days violates the public’s right to access court documents and unfairly blocks plaintiffs from speaking out about misconduct. Christopher Hansen, senior national staff counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, told a panel of judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit that the mandatory seal is “a gag on the clerk of the court, the judge and the court system as a whole.
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