BREWER, J.

This case comes before us in a unique procedural posture. In a juvenile dependency case that is entirely separate from the case at hand, defendant Waller, the Presiding Family Court Judge of the Multnomah County Circuit Court, denied the request of plaintiff The Oregonian for access to a shelter care order that the judge had made in that case. Plaintiff asserted that the order was subject to public disclosure under the Oregon Public Records Law, ORS 192.410 to 192.505, and Article I, section 10, of the Oregon Constitution. After defendant Waller denied plaintiff's request in the juvenile dependency case, plaintiff initiated this action in the Multnomah County Circuit Court, naming Waller as a defendant, and asserting claims under the Oregon Public Records Law and the Declaratory Judgments Act, ORS 28.010 to 28.160. In its complaint, plaintiff sought to have the Multnomah County Circuit Court enter an order for declaratory and injunctive relief, declaring the shelter care order open for public inspection, ordering defendant Waller to release the shelter care order to plaintiff, and awarding attorney fees against her. The trial judge in this action agreed with plaintiff and granted declaratory relief, but not injunctive relief, and, in a supplemental judgment, ordered defendant Waller to pay $69,960 in attorney fees and costs to plaintiff.1

Defendant Waller appeals, arguing that the Multnomah County Circuit Court lacked jurisdiction and authority under either the Oregon Public Records Law or the Declaratory Judgment Act to entertain this action, and making further arguments concerning the merits of the ruling. Plaintiff also appeals, asserting that the trial court erred in determining that the Department of Human Services (DHS) — another defendant — was the prevailing party, and in denying plaintiff an award of attorney fees against DHS. DHS cross-appeals, taking issue with the substance of the trial court's ruling.

On its merits, this suite of appeals and cross-appeals presents several issues of statutory construction and Oregon constitutional law. However, because we conclude that the trial court lacked authority to enter the general judgment in this case, we do not reach the merits of those issues. As explained below, neither the Declaratory Judgments Act nor the Oregon Public Records Law authorizes review by one circuit court judge — that is, the trial court judge in this case — of the decision of another circuit court judge — that is, the juvenile court judge who is the defendant in this case — to deny public release of a court order in a pending case under the latter court's jurisdiction. To explain why, we begin by examining the statutes that inform our analysis.

As an initial matter, we note the statutory basis for defendant Waller's denial of plaintiff's request in the underlying juvenile proceeding. ORS 419A.255 provides, in part:

(Emphasis added.)

Plaintiff has asserted throughout this action (and in its earlier request to defendant Waller) that, despite the provisions of ORS 419A.255, it has a right to obtain disclosure of the order under the Oregon Public Records Law. Plaintiff relies on ORS 192.420, which provides:

Before 1989, it was not clear whether the Oregon Public Records Law applied to the courts. The petitioner in State ex rel. KOIN-TV, Inc. v. Olsen, 300 Or. 392, 398, 711 P.2d 966 (1985), had argued that it did, but the Supreme Court was uncertain. It said that "[t]he failure to include reference to the courts and court records" in the definitional sections of the law "tells against an application of ORS 192.410 to 192.500 to the courts," and it decided to "assume, arguendo, that those sections do not apply." Id. at 399-400, 711 P.2d 966.

In the wake of that decision, the legislature added the word "court" to the definition of "state agency" in former ORS 192.410(2) (1987) (now ORS 192.410(5)), and the words "court records" to the definition of "public record" in former ORS 192.410(4) (1987) (now ORS 192.410(4)(a)). Or. Laws 1989, ch. 377. Thus, the Oregon Public Records Law defines "public records" to include "any writing that contains information relating to the conduct of the public's business, including but not limited to court records." ORS 192.410(4)(a). The disputed order is a juvenile court record. See ORS 419A.255(1) (defining "the record" of a juvenile court case to include "orders of the court").

ORS 192.480 provides, in part:

The parties agree that defendant Waller is "an elected official." In addition, ORS 192.490 provides, in part:

To summarize, under ORS 419A.255(1), a shelter care order is to be withheld from public inspection. ORS 192.420, however, provides for a right "to inspect any public record of a public body of this state," including courts, subject to various exceptions. One such exception is found in ORS 192.502(9)(a), which exempts from disclosure records "made confidential or privileged under Oregon law." Defendant Waller's position throughout these proceedings has been that ORS 419A.255(1) prohibits disclosure of the shelter care order, which, she asserts, also is exempt from disclosure under the Oregon Public Records Law.

For its part, plaintiff does not appear to dispute the foregoing understanding of the pertinent statutory framework. Instead, plaintiff asserts:

Plaintiff has framed these same fundamental legal issues both in terms of a claim pursuant to the Oregon Public Records Law2 and the Declaratory Judgments Act.3

Thus, the preliminary question before us — and the only one we need ultimately answer in this case — is whether the trial judge in this action properly entertained plaintiff's claims pursuant to either the Oregon Public Records Law or the Declaratory Judgments Act. We turn first to the Oregon Public Records Law.

For purposes of the Oregon Public Records Law, the "custodian" of court records is "the person described in ORS 7.110." ORS 192.410(1)(a). ORS 7.110(1) provides that the records and files of a court "shall be maintained by the clerk or court administrator" of the court. Thus, in the ordinary circumstance, the custodian of a court record is a court clerk or court administrator, but not a judge, and the custodian accordingly does not make a judicial decision in determining whether the records must be disclosed.

However, in this case, unlike a court clerk or court administrator to whom a court records request ordinarily would be made, defendant Waller, to use plaintiff's choice of words in its complaint, made an "adjudication" when she entered the order in the juvenile court proceeding. The fact that defendant Waller also is an elected official within the meaning of ORS 192.480 does not alter that conclusion. Contrary to plaintiff's assertion, defendant Waller did not merely "claim the right to withhold disclosure" of the order. Instead, she actually adjudicated plaintiff's request. Nothing that we are aware of in the Oregon Public Records Law authorizes a requestor to sue a judge who has made an adverse public records ruling on a request confided to her authority, merely because the requestor is dissatisfied with the adjudication.

Nonetheless, the court in this action treated defendant Waller as the "proper party to this proceeding" under the Oregon Public Records Law, based on her responsibility as the juvenile court judge under ORS 419A.255,4 and the court entered a judgment declaring that plaintiff was entitled to disclosure of the shelter care order. Thus, defendant Waller asserts that, nomenclature aside, the trial judge has directly countermanded her order to the contrary. Plaintiff remonstrates that the trial judge did not, in fact, review the adjudication of defendant Waller. Plaintiff explains:

With respect, that assertion is beside the point. We, of course, understand that, by asking to obtain the shelter care order under the Oregon Public Records Law, plaintiff did not (and could not) seek to challenge that order and that, in acting on plaintiff's Oregon Public Records Law request, the trial judge did not review the shelter care order itself. Nonetheless, and consistently with the effect that the plaintiff clams for the general judgment in this case, the trial judge reviewed Judge Waller's adjudication that plaintiff was not entitled to disclosure of the shelter care order. According to plaintiff, by declaring that defendant Waller is "required to review plaintiff's request by weighing the public's right to review the [order] against a demonstrated greater need for confidentiality," and that plaintiff has a right under the Oregon Public Records Law and under Article I, section 10, to inspect and review the order, the judgment bound defendant Waller to disclose the shelter care order to plaintiff, in direct contradiction of defendant Waller's previous adjudication.5 Plaintiff simply cannot have it both ways.

Moreover, there is no indication in the text or context of the Oregon Public Records Law that the legislature intended, by making it applicable to courts and court records, to override the prohibitions and restrictions set out in ORS 419A.255 concerning public disclosure of juvenile court records.6 In fact, the legislative history of the 1989 amendments to the Oregon Public Records Law demonstrates that the legislature did not intend thereby to abrogate any existing statutory prohibitions or restrictions on the disclosure of privileged or sealed records.7

So understood, plaintiff's argument is not based on the Oregon Public Records Law as enacted; rather, it depends on the premise that ORS 419A.255 is unconstitutional under Article I, section 10, to the extent that it expressly prohibits public disclosure of the juvenile court order in this case or, alternatively, accords the juvenile court discretion not to publicly disclose the order. Thus, even though plaintiff frames its first claim under the Oregon Public Records Law, it is, in fact, first and last a claim for declaratory relief challenging defendant Waller's adjudication on the ground that ORS 419A.255 cannot constitutionally be applied to preclude public disclosure of the order. Thus, the Oregon Public Records Law could not furnish a basis for disclosure of the order unless plaintiff is entitled under Article I, section 10, to a declaratory judgment requiring defendant Waller, despite her own contrary adjudication, to consent to the disclosure of the order.

We turn to the question whether plaintiff's claims were cognizable in a circuit court action for declaratory judgment. We conclude that they were not. As discussed, in response to plaintiff's public records request, defendant Waller concluded that ORS 419A.255(1) prohibits public inspection of the order, and she denied a request for her to consent to disclosure of that order pursuant to ORS 419A.255(3). That decision — based on the Juvenile Code in a pending juvenile dependency case — was not reviewable in a declaratory judgment claim by a different circuit court judge in a separate lawsuit.

Except to the extent that it has been modified by statute, original Article VII, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution is the source of circuit court jurisdiction. Article VII, section 9 (original), of the Oregon Constitution, provides:

That is, circuit court judges have the power to review the decisions of lower tribunals, but they have no authority to review the decisions of other circuit court judges — let alone the decisions of circuit court judges on whom a particular decisional authority has been exclusively conferred — in the absence of some overriding statutory or constitutional authority. No statute of which we are aware has changed that proposition in a way that is relevant to this case.

Indeed, ORS 419A.255(3) expressly provides that no information concerning the child may be released "without the consent of the court." In context, that provision requires the consent of the judge in the juvenile dependency case pursuant to the provisions of the Juvenile Code, not the consent of a different circuit court judge in a different action. ORS 419A.004 provides:

In particular, a declaratory judgment is unavailable as a remedy in this action. Declaratory judgment is not a substitute for a new trial or an appeal, and it will not lend itself for use as a collateral attack on a prior judicial decision by a court of competent jurisdiction. LaMarche v. State, 81 Or.App. 216, 725 P.2d 378, rev. den., 302 Or. 299, 728 P.2d 531 (1986). As the Supreme Court stated in In re Baker's Estate, 156 Or. 256, 269, 67 P.2d 185 (1937):

Although the court in In re Baker's Estate relied on the predecessor to ORS 28.060, which, because of its usage of the word "may," is cast in terms of discretion, it is evident from the court's categorical renunciation of the use of declaratory judgment as a device to challenge prior adjudications made by the same court that circuit courts fundamentally lack such authority. Moreover, that view of the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act on which ORS Chapter 28 is based is universally accepted by other courts and commentators.8

So, for example, the Nebraska Supreme Court has held:

Zarybnicky v. Gage County, 196 Neb. 210, 241 N.W.2d 834, 837 (1976); see also Shattuck and Shattuck, 67 Ariz. 122, 192 P.2d 229, 235 (1948) ("[Arizona's declaratory judgment statute] does not expressly or by implication authorize a court to entertain a proceeding to determine any questions of the construction or validity of a judgment or decree of a court of competent jurisdiction, or to declare the rights or legal relations of interested parties thereunder."); Edwin Borchard, Declaratory Judgments 355 (2d ed. 1941) ("Perhaps it goes without saying that the declaratory action is not a substitute for a new trial or for an appeal from a former judgment deciding identical issues or issues which the court believes were necessarily passed on."); Walter H. Anderson, Declaratory Judgments 629 (1940) (same).

In bringing this action, plaintiff eschewed a well-established mechanism for seeking review of defendant Waller's decision by a higher court, not by another circuit court judge. Plaintiff was entitled to seek mandamus review of defendant's decision by the Oregon Supreme Court, as it has done in the past in other cases. See, e.g., State ex rel. Oregonian v. Deiz, 289 Or. 277, 613 P.2d 23 (1980) (mandamus review of circuit court denial of access to court proceedings). There is nothing in the pertinent statutory text, context, or legislative history to suggest that either the Oregon Public Records Law or the Declaratory Judgments Act was intended to supplant or supplement that well-established means of review.

It follows that the trial court erred in denying defendant Waller's motion for summary judgment, in granting plaintiff's motion for summary judgment, and in entering a general judgment in favor of plaintiff. In addition, the court erred in entering the supplemental judgment for attorney fees against defendant Waller. Our disposition of defendant Waller's appeal makes it unnecessary to consider any of the parties' other arguments on appeal or cross-appeal.

On Waller's appeal, reversed and remanded with instructions to dismiss this action. Oregonian Publishing Company's appeal and State of Oregon's cross-appeal dismissed as moot.