Legal News

Is Pay Freeze for Judges a Constitutional Violation? Yes, Say Other Judges

By Ashby Jones

Question: When does a reluctance to give a pay raise turn into a separation of powers violation?

Answer: When you’re dealing with New York’s governors and legislators refusing to hike the pay for the state’s judges.

Such was the ruling made Tuesday by the New York State Court of Appeals. (We imagine that when judges sue over pay, they’re all too happy to have other state judges rule on their claims.)

In a 5-to-1 decision, the Court of Appeals found that the legislative and executive branches illegally pegged judges' pay raises to unrelated legislation. As such, the actions violated the separation of powers doctrine under the New York state constitution. Click here for the NYT article; here for the opinion.

"The state defendants . . . overlook the fact that they are treating judicial compensation - which falls within the scope of their constitutional duties - as if it were merely another government program appropriation as opposed to compensation for members of a co-equal branch,” the court wrote in its opinion.

The ruling didn’t, however, order lawmakers to grant a pay raise to judges, though the language of the opinion leaves open the possibility that the court may attempt to do so in the future.

According to the NYT article, judges' pay in New York was last raised in 1998. Since then, the court found, inflation has whittled the value of judges' salaries to about 1/3 of what it once was. During the same period, the court found, the judges' workload has risen significantly.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on February 23, 2010 (boomark / email).