In a ruling last week, a Denver district judge ordered the state’s Independent Ethics Commission to turn over records including written requests from government employees asking for ethical advice.

The ruling by Judge Norman Haglund came after the non-profit group Colorado Ethics Watch sued the commission for what it said was an illegal effort to withhold its working documents from the public and operate essentially as a non-governmental entity.

“I think it’s a landmark case,” said Luis Toro, a spokesman for CEW on Wednesday. “It’s a ruling that says the IEC is subject to the same open records laws as other parts of government and, best of all, we have seen a change of behavior in the way they conduct meetings as witnessed yesterday when they were debating their business in public. We think that it all is very positive.”