Its findings have been shown to be preposterously one-sided.
Yet the U.S. General Accounting Office has issued a report finding that the Coast Guard's administrative law judge system is valid, affording equal justice to fishermen and others charged with violating regulations.
The report should not carry much weight, and not just because the fishing community knows otherwise. Indeed, a 2007 investigation by the Baltimore Sun newspaper showed that judges found overwhelmingly in favor of the Coast Guard when it brought charges against fishermen.
But the report is also flawed because the GAO did not even consider cases brought against fishermen and fishing merchants by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which uses the Coast Guard courts to try its cases.
It also makes no references of allegations of improper influence by the chief justice on the trial judge assigned to hear a case against the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction, which is sometimes used by Newburyport area fishermen to land their catches.
In short, the report doesn't even deal with areas that really matter — where there is considerable evidence of unequal justice.
This is especially disappointing because of its contrast with the recent report by Coast Guard Atlantic Area commander, Vice Adm. Robert J. Papp Jr., on the tragic sinking Jan. 3 of the Gloucester fishing boat Patriot, and the loss of Capt. Matteo Russo, 36, and his father-in-law, John Orlando, 59.
Papp's report was both thorough and unsparing in its analysis of why the Coast Guard failed to launch rescue efforts for nearly two and a half hours after the first indication that something was wrong. He called it a systemic failure by duty personnel at multiple levels.
The GAO report will not be the last word on the matter. The Inspector General of the Department of Commerce, which includes NOAA, will be investigating how NOAA has used the Coast Guard and the Massachusetts Environmental Police to enforce fishing regulations.
Both the fishing community and the state's congressional delegation have demanded an investigation of what they say is NOAA's "vindictive" and "retaliatory" approach to enforcement.
And one prime example of that is the Auction, which came close to complete vindication in a case brought by the Coast Guard in 2006. The Coast Guard had sought to shut down the Auction for 90 days and to fine it $120,000. The first judge threw the case out entirely. On appeal, a second judge cut the suspension to 20 days and the fine to $20,000.
But now there is another case, brought this past February, in which the Coast Guard is seeking a shutdown of 120 days and fines of more than $300,000 for 59 counts of allegedly brokering thousands of pounds of illegally caught fish.
And it is unsettling, to say the least, that two administrative law judges, including the one assigned to the current case against the Auction, are key players in the ongoing investigation of the system.
This amounts to letting those within the system investigate themselves. That can hardly be objective.
Enforcement of the laws of the sea and of fishing regulations is important. But for that enforcement to be credible, it must be fair.
That is going to take an impartial, objective investigation. The GAO report doesn't do much to reach that goal.
