Government-in-the-Sunshine Manual

Chapter updated: 02/25/2008

Florida's Government in the Sunshine Law, commonly referred to as the Sunshine Law, provides a right of access to governmental proceedings at both the state and local levels. The law is equally applicable to elected and appointed boards and has been applied to any gathering of two or more members of the same board to discuss some matter which will foreseeably come before
that board for action. There are three basic requirements of s.
286.011, F.S.:

(1) meetings of public boards or commissions must be open to the public;
(2) reasonable notice of such meetings must be given; and
(3) minutes of the meetings must be taken.

The complete text of the Government in the Sunshine Law and related statutes may be found in Appendix B.

A right of access to meetings of collegial public bodies is also recognized in the Florida Constitution. See, Frankenmuth Mutual Insurance Company v. Magaha, 769 So. 2d 1012, 1021 (Fla. 2000), noting that the Sunshine Law "is of both constitutional and statutory dimension." Article I, s. 24, Fla. Const., was approved by the voters in the November 1992 general election and became effective July 1, 1993. Virtually all collegial public bodies are covered by the open meetings mandate of the open government constitutional amendment with the exception of the judiciary and the state Legislature, which has its own constitutional provision requiring access. The only exceptions are those established by law or by the Constitution. The complete text of the amendment may be found in Appendix A of this manual.

The requirements of the Sunshine Law and Art. I, s. 24, Fla. Const., are discussed in detail in Part I. Please refer to the Table of Contents or the Index for a listing of the specific subjects.