Hawaii’s Sunshine Law is the state’s open meetings statute, found in Part I of Chapter 92 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes. It requires that meetings of state and county boards be open to the public, that agendas be posted in advance, that testimony be accepted before votes, and that closed-door sessions happen only for a short list of specific reasons. The law gives you the right to attend, to testify, and to challenge decisions made in violation of its rules.
Which Boards Are Covered
The statute defines “board” broadly: any agency, board, commission, authority, or committee of the state or a county that was created by the constitution, a statute, a rule, or an executive order and that has supervision, control, jurisdiction, or advisory power over specific matters. That sweeps in major state commissions along with county neighborhood boards.
Some bodies fall outside it. The judicial branch is excluded entirely under HRS § 92-6. Boards performing adjudicatory functions under the Hawaii Administrative Procedure Act, such as the Hawaii Labor Relations Board, the Hawaii Paroling Authority, the Civil Service Commission, and the State Ethics Commission, are exempt when acting in that capacity. The Land Use Commission is a specific exception: even though it adjudicates, it must deliberate in public.
The Sunshine Law’s definition of “board” is narrower than the definition of “agency” used by Hawaii’s separate open records statute, the Uniform Information Practices Act. Some government units keep records accessible under UIPA while their meetings sit outside the Sunshine Law’s reach.
Notice and Agenda Rules
Boards must post a written notice and agenda at least six calendar days before any meeting. If the notice goes up late, the meeting is canceled automatically as a matter of law. The notice must appear on an electronic calendar maintained by the state or the relevant county, be filed with the Office of the Lieutenant Governor for state boards or the county clerk’s office for county boards, and be posted at the board’s own office. When feasible, it should also be posted at the meeting site. Boards must maintain a mailing list of people who have asked to be notified and send the notice by mail or email no later than when the agenda is posted online.
The agenda has to list every item the board plans to take up, along with the date, time, and place, contact information for submitting testimony, and instructions for requesting disability accommodations. The Office of Information Practices has said agendas must be self-explanatory. Jargon, acronyms, or references to outside documents that leave the public guessing at what will actually be discussed do not meet the standard.
After the six-day window closes, adding items to the agenda takes a two-thirds vote of all members the board is entitled to have, including vacant seats. Even then, items of “reasonably major importance” that affect a significant number of people cannot be added at the meeting at all.
Board Packets Before the Meeting
When a board distributes documents to its members ahead of a meeting, those materials must be available for public inspection at the board’s office no later than three full business days beforehand. Act 11 of 2024 tightened related rules, requiring board packets to be distributed at least two business days before a meeting and posted online as soon as practicable. Boards must also notify people on their mailing list when the packet is ready and should accommodate requests for electronic copies. Documents that are confidential under the UIPA may be withheld from the public version.
Your Right to Testify
The law guarantees the public the right to submit written and oral testimony on any agenda item. Boards cannot confine oral testimony to the start of a meeting; it must be accepted before the board deliberates and votes on the item in question. Boards may set reasonable time limits, but the limits must be in a written policy and applied evenly.
A November 2025 OIP guidance document spelled out several practical points. Boards cannot require testifiers to identify themselves, so you may testify anonymously. Boards cannot require preregistration for oral testimony, though they may request it and prioritize those who signed up. Formal deadlines for written testimony are not permitted, though submissions arriving close to or after the start of a meeting may not reach members in time to be read. For remote meetings, boards must let testifiers appear on camera if the testifier wants to be seen.
Boards may remove people who willfully disrupt a meeting, including during remote proceedings where uninvited participants have interrupted. They cannot preemptively bar members of the public from attending.
Remote and Hybrid Meetings
Hawaii boards have held hybrid meetings since late 2020, and the current framework, reflecting amendments through the 2024 session, is now part of the permanent code.
Under HRS § 92-3.5, boards can convene across multiple physical locations linked by interactive conference technology, which includes teleconference, videoconference, and voice-over-internet protocol. Members at any connected site count toward quorum and may vote. A member with a disability that prevents physical attendance may participate remotely by audio and video, provided the member identifies who else is present at that location.
Under HRS § 92-3.7, a fully remote meeting still requires at least one physical location where the public can attend in person with an audiovisual connection. A quorum of members must be visible and audible to each other and to the public, except during executive sessions. Votes are conducted by roll call unless the vote is unanimous. The notice must include instructions for viewing the meeting remotely and giving oral testimony.
If the audio or video connection drops, the meeting automatically recesses for up to 30 minutes to restore it. If it cannot be restored and no reasonable notice of an alternative time was given, the meeting terminates.
Act 12 of 2024, effective January 1, 2025, requires boards holding remote meetings to offer a video-capable option for remote testimony and explicitly allows boards to remove or block disruptive participants.
When a Board Can Close a Meeting
Executive sessions are permitted only for a short list of purposes under HRS § 92-5. Those include evaluating personal information of professional license applicants; considering the hiring, evaluation, dismissal, or discipline of an officer or employee where privacy is genuinely at stake; deliberating on labor negotiations or the acquisition of public property; consulting with the board’s attorney about its powers and liabilities; investigating criminal misconduct; addressing sensitive public safety or security matters; considering solicitation of private donations; and deliberating on information that must remain confidential by law or court order.
To enter executive session, a board must take an affirmative vote of two-thirds of the members present at an open meeting, and that vote must also constitute a majority of all members the board is entitled to have. The reason for closing the meeting must be announced publicly, and each member’s vote on the motion is recorded in the minutes. After the session, the board must reconvene in open session and report on what was discussed or decided, so long as reporting would not defeat the purpose of the closure.
The statute directs that provisions allowing closed meetings be “strictly construed against closed meetings.” Boards cannot discuss or decide anything in executive session that falls outside the listed exceptions.
Minutes and Recordings
Written minutes must give what the statute calls “a true reflection of the matters discussed at the meeting and the views of the participants.” At minimum, minutes include the date, time, and place; a list of members present or absent; the substance of all matters proposed, discussed, or decided; a record of every vote identified by member; and a link to any electronic recording posted online. Any member may ask that additional information be reflected in the minutes during the meeting.
Minutes must be posted on the board’s website, or an appropriate state or county website, within 40 days after the meeting. For meetings held via interactive conference technology, recordings must be made available as soon as practicable and kept online until the written minutes are posted. Minutes of executive sessions may be withheld only for as long as their release would defeat the lawful purpose of the closure.
Talking Outside a Meeting
The law tightly restricts how board members can communicate about official business between meetings. Two members may discuss board business privately, but only if they do not constitute a quorum, make no commitment to vote a particular way, and do not use the conversation as a link in a chain of serial communications. Serial communication, where Member A speaks with Member B and B then relays the substance to C, is a violation even though no single conversation involves a quorum.
“Board business” means matters over which the board has supervision, control, jurisdiction, or advisory power that are currently before it or reasonably anticipated to come before it. Purely social conversation, routine administrative details like travel arrangements, and matters within a chairperson’s prerogative such as setting the agenda are not board business. OIP applied this practically when a volcanologist briefed a county council about a volcano: because the council had no jurisdiction over the volcano and no board action was foreseeable, the briefing was not board business.
The statute allows a few other structured interactions. Groups of fewer than a quorum may investigate a matter if the scope was defined at a board meeting and findings are reported back at a subsequent meeting. Members may attend community or informational events so long as the events are not organized exclusively for the board, no voting commitments are made, and attendance is reported at the next meeting. Act 13 of 2024 added a rule for permitted interaction groups: at least six business days must pass between the meeting where the group reports its findings and the meeting where the full board acts on them.
Enforcement, Penalties, and the 2024 Changes
When a board violates the law, several remedies are available. A final action taken in violation of open meeting requirements may be voided by a court under HRS § 92-11, though a suit to void must be filed within 90 days. Anyone can file a complaint with the Office of Information Practices or go directly to circuit court to seek an injunction or other relief under HRS § 92-12.
Act 160, signed by Governor Josh Green on July 22, 2024, rewrote much of the enforcement framework. It established a two-year statute of limitations for Sunshine Law lawsuits, provided for de novo court review of OIP decisions, and specified that only members of the public, not government agencies, may recover attorney’s fees and costs when they prevail. Plaintiffs must notify OIP of lawsuits so the office can decide whether to intervene, and courts are directed to prioritize cases seeking to void a board’s final action.
Individual penalties on paper are modest. A willful violation is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $100. But a willful violation is also grounds for removal from the board, and the cost of defending a Sunshine Law suit can far exceed the statutory fine.
The Office of Information Practices
The Office of Information Practices, housed within the state Department of the Attorney General, has administered the Sunshine Law since 1998. OIP is a neutral body that interprets the law, receives complaints, and issues opinions. It does not provide legal advice or represent either side in a dispute.
OIP issues two kinds of opinions. Formal opinions are published and carry precedential weight, meaning boards must follow them unless a court or a later OIP opinion supersedes them. Informal, or memorandum, opinions address specific factual scenarios and do not set binding precedent. OIP also operates an “Attorney of the Day” service that offers general, non-binding guidance to the public and government agencies, typically within 24 hours of a phone call or email.
The Shift on Closed-Door Personnel Decisions
The most contested area of Sunshine Law enforcement has been when boards may use executive sessions for hiring and evaluating top officials. The pivotal case came in 2019, when the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that the Honolulu Police Commission had violated the Sunshine Law by holding a 2017 closed session to approve a $250,000 payout to departing Police Chief Louis Kealoha. The court held that boards must show a specific privacy interest, such as a medical or mental health issue, to close a meeting for personnel matters. The commission was then compelled to release detailed minutes of the closed session.
Despite that ruling, OIP continued to issue guidance permitting broader use of executive sessions for hiring and evaluating agency leadership. In 2023, both the Agribusiness Development Corp. and the state Defender Council hired new agency heads behind closed doors, relying on that OIP opinion. The Public First Law Center sued in January 2024.
In August 2025, Circuit Court Judge Jordon Kimura ruled against both agencies. The court found the Agribusiness Development Corp. committed multiple violations by using ad hoc committees for candidate searches and conducting interviews in private during the hiring of executive director Wendy Gady. The Defender Council was found to have failed to maintain proper meeting records and to have improperly cited privacy concerns when entering executive session during the appointment of State Public Defender Jon Ikenaga. Judge Kimura ordered the corporation to release unredacted minutes from July and August 2023, required both agencies to pay $20,000 in attorney’s fees to the Public First Law Center, and required Sunshine Law training for both.
In October 2025, OIP formally reversed its earlier guidance. The office acknowledged that OIP Op. Ltr. No. F24-03, which had allowed boards to hire, fire, and evaluate officials in secret, was “palpably erroneous.” OIP director Carlotta Amerino stated that executive sessions may still be used for “highly personal information” such as medical or financial issues, but must be strictly construed in line with the 2019 Supreme Court precedent.
The University of Hawaii Board of Regents is now the next test. The board held executive sessions in 2024 to interview and hire University of Hawaii President Wendy Hensel, relying on the OIP guidance that was later retracted. In April 2026, the Public First Law Center filed a new lawsuit alleging the board violated the Sunshine Law by conducting the hiring process and an October 2025 performance evaluation of Hensel in closed sessions. The complaint noted that the board awarded the president and her special adviser a combined $1 million in annual compensation behind closed doors, with Hensel receiving $675,000 annually plus a $7,000 monthly housing allowance. The suit seeks release of executive session minutes and recordings and improved compliance going forward, but does not seek to invalidate the hirings. The case is pending as of early 2026.
Sunshine Law and the UIPA
The Sunshine Law and the Uniform Information Practices Act together form Hawaii’s open government framework, but they cover different ground. The Sunshine Law governs meetings, meaning how boards deliberate and decide. The UIPA, enacted in 1988, governs records, meaning which government documents you can access. The UIPA replaced the open records and privacy provisions that had originally been part of the Sunshine Law, leaving the meetings portion intact.
The two intersect in practical ways. Board packets must be available to the public under the Sunshine Law, but only “to the extent the documents are public under chapter 92F,” so the UIPA determines which documents inside a packet can be withheld. Act 160’s 2024 amendments were designed to align Sunshine Law court procedures with those already in place under the UIPA. Both statutes are administered by the same agency, the Office of Information Practices.