At the risk of getting myself almost thrown into prison again, we will attempt in this space to venture down the road of asking what if more government bodies or government-appointed boards held open meetings in the Cayman Islands.

Here’s some relatively recent research on the subject:

Just four out of roughly 115 government boards or committees in the Cayman Islands hold their meetings in public, according to an article the Caymanian Compass written in January 2010.

Two of open committee hearings occur in the Legislative Assembly, with members of the public being able to attend most of the deliberations of Finance Committee and the Public Accounts Committee. The other two open meetings are the Liquor Licensing Board meetings of Grand Cayman and Cayman Brac/Little Cayman.

The other 111-odd boards and committees operating in the Cayman Islands typically hold their hearings in closed quarters, with only members, support staff, and - sometimes - invited guests allowed to come along.

Since the advent of the Freedom of Information Law, many boards and commissions have made it standard practice to release meeting minutes on their websites. However, there appears to the casual observer to be no standard form in releasing meeting minute records and while some boards release volumes of information, others keep it relatively brief.

In any case, it appears not many more publicly-appointed bodies have made the move in recent months toward holding open meetings.

Open meetings have gotten the support of no less an authority than Attorney General Sam Bulgin who says he likes the idea.

Bulgin said he could understand the reasons certain appointed boards, such as those that deal with personal medical issues or sensitive national security matters, should be held in private.

“But for planning and so forth, I don’t see why not,” he said in March 2010.

The proposal to hold open meetings for certain government-appointed boards such as immigration-related boards, the Central Planning Authority and the Port Authority was supported by way of a 2007 private members motion by then-Opposition Leader McKeeva Bush.

At the time, Leader of Government Business Kurt Tibbetts noted that such a move might be impractical and could increase government operating costs.

Since then, Mr. Bush has raised the quite valid issue of whether qualified individuals might continue to serve on appointed boards if they knew their deliberations would all be public. The board members are after all, mostly volunteers or low-paid appointees, not politicians.

In any case, the matter is at the very least worthy of more consideration, even dare we say, for subcommittees of the Legislative Assembly?