ARCHIVIST OF THE HALL OF RECORDS 5 9

OPINIONS OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
AND ACTS OF ASSEMBLY

For several years the Hall of Records had found that its records manage-
ment program was often severely handicapped by the fact that certain records
were required by law to be maintained permanently. The Attorney General
had held on several occasions that such records could not be destroyed under
the provisions of the Records Management Act of 1953. This opinion was
repeated in detail October 31, 1955, and it was printed in full for your con-
venience in my Annual Report for fiscal year 1955. We had previously failed
in our attempt to have legislation passed which would void these scattered and
capricious provisions for permanent retention. Therefore, in order to make
it possible for us to dispose of at least some of these records we succeeded in
amending our law on records disposal to authorize us to dispose of records in
this category which had been microfilmed. While this is of course only a com-
promise measure it is a great improvement over the situation as it existed be-
fore. The Act of Assembly is reprinted herewith:

CHAPTER 82
(House Bill 12)

AN ACT to repeal and re-enact, with amendments, Section 154 of
Article 41 of the Annotated Code of Maryland (1955 Supplement),
title "Governor—Executive and Administrative Departments", sub-
title "The Executive Department," sub-heading "Hall of Records
Commission", relating to the destruction of certain records required
by law to be kept permanently where the original record has been
photographed or otherwise reproduced.

SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Maryland
That Section 154 of Article 41 of the Annotated Code of Maryland (1955
Supplement), title "Governor—Executive and Administrative Departments",
sub-title "The Executive Department", sub-heading "Hall of Records Com-
mission", be and it is hereby repealed and reenacted, with amendments, to read
as follows:

154. If the Commission shall decline to accept any original papers,
official books, records, documents or files offered to it under the provisions of
Section 153, then the custodian thereof, with the written approval of the
Board of Public Works, is authorized and empowered to destroy the same.
After such records are destroyed, the custodian thereof shall file with the Hall
of Records a list of all papers, books, documents and files destroyed and a
certificate of destruction. Such lists shall be retained in the custody of the