Florida

Florida Legislature To Strip Courts of Rule-Making Ability?

We've certainly seen our share of lame-brained, reactionary, and just plain arse-inine proposals out of Tally, but this has to be one of the dumbest to come down the high speed train pike in a long time:

A constitutional amendment that would take court procedural rulemaking authority away from the Supreme Court and give it to the Legislature has been introduced in a House subcommittee that has been studying the issue.

PCB CVJS 11-01 would amend Art. V, Sec. 2, of the constitution. A second bill, PCB CVJS 11-02 would create legislation implementing the amendment, if it eventually passes the Legislature and is approved by voters.

Currently, Art. V, Sec. 2, provides that the Supreme Court has the authority to adopt practice and procedure rules for the court, and the Legislature may repeal any rule by a two-thirds vote of both chambers. It also includes some technical language about the court and the district courts of appeal submitting questions on military law for an advisory opinion to a special military appellate court.

The amendment repeals all of that, and instead specifies: ?No court shall have the power, express or implied, to adopt rules for practice and procedure in any court. Court rules of practice and procedure may be recommended by the Supreme Court to be adopted, amended or rejected by the legislature in a manner prescribed by general law. If there is a conflict between general law and a court rule, the general law supersedes the court rule.?

That's like Congress passing a law that pilots cannot decide how to fly a plane.

To paraphrase Barry Richard, this is f$%*ing stupid and totally unnecessary:

He also addressed whether the federal model of having Congress review procedural rules would work in Florida ? something some committee members have suggested. Richard said the country?s founders assumed that virtually all cases would be resolved in state courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court was the only federal court expressly created by the Constitution. Congress, however, was given the power to create lesser courts, and hence those courts are the creatures of Congress.

Florida?s courts are created in the state Constitution, not by the Legislature, he said.

Further, he said, the jurisdiction of federal courts was much more limited than it is currently.

Richard also said in practice, even though Congress has a review, the federal procedural rules systems works much like Florida?s, with the court?s proposing rules that are rarely altered by Congress.

Or is that the idea?

Full post as published by South Florida Lawyers on March 04, 2011 (boomark / email).