|
point a judge, then having him run in an
open election, the public will be able to ex-
press itself on both the wisdom of the gov-
ernor and the competence of his appointee.
A simple yes or no vote, on a judge who
has served for two years or so is not nearly
the same as a vote for a specific candidate.
An important factor here is that citizens
may well either blindly vote yes or, worse,
not vote at all when called upon to con-
sider a judicial selection where they have
no control over future selection.
Our proposed amendment to the Report
of the Judicial Branch would "eliminate
judicial nominating commissions for Su-
perior Courts and District Courts. It would
have the governor appoint judges for two
years, then have the new appointees run
in open election against any qualified per-
son who either felt the appointee had not
adequately performed his duty to date or
felt that he could perform the judicial
function better.
This is a far more responsible approach
than that offered by the majority for these
reasons: First, the judge initially is ap-
pointed by the governor, our Chief Execu-
tive, and not after his alternatives have
been reduced to as few as two by a nomi-
nating commission responsible to no one.
The appointment in this manner we add
is arrived at from the whole range of all
possible appointees.
Second, the election contest is open rather
than limited simply to ratifying the ap-
pointment virtually controlled by the nomi-
nating commission. The appointee knows
clearly he holds office at the will of the
citizens of his community or State. As-
suming that the citizens of Maryland will
always retain the inherent right to control
their government, we feel that this is a
right and proper policy.
We will admit that our proposal may
allow for some politicking in the office of
the chief executive. But we ask the ma-
jority to consider the possibility of a closed
door maneuvering on the part of the nomi-
nating commission; at least under our pro-
posal the maneuvering, if any, is out in the
open for everyone to see.
These conflicting views, together with the
fact that the successful nominee under our
proposal ultimately will have to satisfy the
public that he is a better man for the job
than some other candidate for judge per-
suades the minority to urge adoption of its
amendment to the Majority Report.
Under the proposal submitted by the ma-
jority, the appointee will be virtually as-
|
sured of continuance in office regardless of
his lack of capability and misconduct short
of removal.
The national history of judicial elections
under the so-called Missouri Plan, the plan
proposed by the majority, demonstrates
that only two judges have been removed
from office by the electorate. There are
various opinions why this occurred even on
those two occasions, but largely these opin-
ions are based on conjecture.
Another factor causing us to oppose this
proposal of the majority is the fact that
the local court in some counties is too
small to produce good men to sit on nomi-
nating commissions and for good men to
accept judgeships under consideration.
One county in the State has only approxi-
mately six practicing attorneys, at least
five other counties have fewer than thirty
lawyers.
The nominating commission plan prom-
ises to work quite effectively for appellate
courts which have a much larger geographic
jurisdiction, but it seems quite unrealistic
to the minority to have this procedure in
the localized trial court area.
I have gone into some detail with re-
spect to the selection of judges at trial
court level because this issue is illustrative
of our concern that democratic principles
should be applied to the judicial branch as
well as the legislative and the executive
branches.
We want to see an independent but re-
sponsible judiciary and we are especially
anxious that judges at the trial court level
fully recognize that they are responsible
to the people and have to answer to them
at least one time in sixteen years.
Keeping in mind the fact that our con-
cept of responsible representative govern-
ment calls for reasonable and logical checks
of authority, we hope you will cast an es-
pecially critical eye on the recommenda-
tions in the majority report with respect
to the selection of nonjudicial officers of
the court; I refer specifically to section
5.11, which deals with appointment by the
court of the commissioners after first cre-
ating the office of commissioner, and sec-
tion 5.30 wherein it is provided in the ma-
jority report that the court will appoint
the clerks on the district court level.
Where control over this matter tradition-
ally has been in the hands of the legisla-
ture which, as the representative body of
the people, may appropriately use its au-
thority as a check on potentially excessive
|
