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covered by sections 5.25 through 5.28. As
indicated before, this matter was consid-
ered at some length by your Committee on
the Judicial Branch. We have made a sub-
stantial departure from the existing law
as contained in the present Constitution as
well as the recommendation by the Study
Commission.
In essence the Committee on the Judicial
Branch in its majority report has adopted
the California plan. It sets up the Judicial
Disabilities Commission, and provides the
manner in which such Commission shall
proceed.
It shall make recommendations for re-
moval or retirement and ultimately the
Court of Appeals has the final authority
to determine whether a judge on the rec-
ommendation of the Commission might be
removed, retired or censured, the "or cen-
sured" being, I understand, the only inclu-
sion in this Recommendation not presently
part of the California plan.
It is our information that those familiar
with the California Plan now say its plan
should include the power of censure.
By virtue of that recommendation, the
Majority Report includes the power of the
court of appeals to censure.
The next subject matter dealt with in
the Committee Report is that of adminis-
tration of the judicial system and which to
the Committee seemed a most integral
and necessary part of its responsibility.
Basically, the recommendation in this
regard is that the chief judge of the Court
of Appeals be the administrative head of
the court system. He has the right to
appoint chief judges who shall perform
some administrative duties as shall be
prescribed by rule, and in addition the
Court of Appeals by rule may provide for
other administrative judges in addition to
the chief judges to perform such functions
as prescribed by rule.
The administrative responsibility under
the court system as proposed of course will
be a substantial responsibility and in the
view of the majority of the Committee it
was imperative that the recommendation of
the Committee include guidelines in this
area to be covered by the rule-making
power of the Court of Appeals.
With respect to the matter of clerks of
court, the Committee Recommendation is
identical with the draft article except in
one respect. That is that the clerk of the
superior court in each county on the basis
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of the Committee Recommendation shall be
selected as prescribed by law. In other re-
spects this section follows the substance
at least of the draft proposed by the Study
Commission.
The final section, that dealing with rule-
making power of the Court of Appeals,
likewise follows the existing situation and
the proposed draft by the Study Commis-
sion.
It is the conclusion of the majority of
the Committee on the Judicial Branch that
the present system has worked well. There
has been complete compatibility between
the Court of Appeals and the General As-
sembly in the exercise of their respective
functions in this area, and the only thing
that the Committee Recommendation does
that in our view was not entirely clear in
the draft submitted by the Study Commis-
sion was to emphasize by language we have
added that the last in point of time, that is,
rule or law, shall supersede, the language
exactly being this, the later in time, that is
in event of conflict when rule and law shall
supersede it prior to the extent of the con-
flict, we do define the rule in this article to
mean rule adopted by the Court of Appeals.
That ladies and gentlemen of the Com-
mittee of the Whole hopefully within the
suggested time limit is a brief summary
of the recommendation of the Committee on
the Judicial Branch as to what should be
included in Article V to improve and re-
form to some extent the judicial arm of
government in the State of Maryland in
the new Constitution.
THE CHAIRMAN: As I indicated
earlier in response to the questions of Dele-
gate Malkus, there is a period now for
questioning but this is only a general pre-
sentation. Time is limited under debate
schedule. I would hope questions would be
limited only to the arrangement of the
section. There will be ample time for ques-
tions as each part of the article is pre-
sented.
Are there any questions as to general
presentation? If not, the Chair recognizes
Delegate Johnson to make a general pre-
sentation of the Minority Report.
Delegate Johnson, please come forward
to the reading desk.
DELEGATE JOHNSON: Mr. Chairman,
I would like to open by noting that we all
have a deep moral commitment to our task
here. I would note further that our task
has been greatly facilitated by the remark-
ably fine efforts of the Constitutional Con-
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