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A new civil rights law will provide domestic violence survivors even greater protection and confidentiality.
For the past fifteen years, a particular provision of the New York Civil Rights law - Section 64-a - has exempted domestic violence survivors from the requirement that legal name changes be published in a local paper, and has allowed judges to seal all court documents associated with such a change when the court found that disclosing the change would jeopardize the safety of the person requesting it. This law has provided anonymity and refuge for thousands of domestic violence survivors across the State who are forced to legally change their names to protect themselves and ther families.
However, although the law protected domestic violence survivors once a name change became final it did not maintain the confidentiality of name change information while the applicant’s case was pending.
Now, thanks in large part to the efforts of the Empoire Justice Center, an Albany-based advocacy organization, a new civil rights law provision requires judges to order that all name change information be sealed and safeguarded starting at the time a case is opened, rather than waiting until a final decision is reached.
This is a small but significant change. The time period before a name change is finalized can be dangerous for domestic violence survivors and their families. As information about court cases, including court dates, docket information, and pending motions becomes increasingly available online, domestic violence survivors are growing increasingly exposed and vulnerable. For example, before this law was passed in July, if information about a domestic violence survivor’s name change application was made available online, either the applicant, the applicant’s attorney, or the judge would need to be specifically aware of the potential safety breach in order to request or order a temporary sealing of the records while the case was pending.
The Empire Justice Center first drafted the bill that formed the basis for this law in 2007. After bouncing around the House and the Senate during the 2008 session, the bill was reintroduced in 2009 by Assemblyman William Scarborough and Senator Carl Kruger. Governor Paterson signed the bill into law on July 7th, 2009.
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