2016 was a transitional year in the development of OPRA law: many important issues were brought to the Appellate Division during this year, but these issues will not be finally resolved until 2017, when the Supreme Court will issue opinions in the many OPRA cases now pending before it.

These cases involve such critical matters as access to police dash cam videos, the scope of the criminal investigatory records exemption, privacy, the use of declaratory judgment in OPRA litigation, the application of OPRA to volunteer fire companies and OPRA requests that seek reports from databases.

There are some significant matters that were resolved in 2016. A few weeks ago the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Gilleran, dealing with the security exemption and building surveillance camera footage.

Also, one notable case decided by the Appellate Division is not, at least at this point, under review by the Supreme Court. In North Jersey Media v. Bergen Prosecutor, the Appellate Division held that an agency may decline to confirm or deny the existence of responsive records in answering a request for records concerning a person who has not been charged with a crime.

These two cases are quite important, but the pendency of a number of Supreme Court OPRA cases makes next year even more significant.