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diction to the district court or to the su-
perior court on matters, let's say, pertain-
ing to traffic court cases. It is clearly up
to the legislature to set the jurisdiction.
It may withhold traffic court cases from
the district court and then set up quasi-
judicial courts for this function. However,
I do not believe that it is going to do that
and I do not believe that it is going to
create a system similar to what we have
now.
The entire purpose for the minority in
bringing this amendment before you was
for the Committee of the Whole to decide
whether or not it wanted to write a flexible
document, whether or not it was going to
put trust in its legislature to follow through
with the tenets of Article V, and give the
specific courts set forth there, the superior
court, district court, et cetera, their juris-
diction in accordance with the jurisdiction
that the other courts now have under the
present system, but reserve — reserve, I
submit — the right to create other courts,
special courts, as the need may in the fu-
ture require.
May I reiterate that under the present
system, in this day and age, Article V, as
written by the majority will take care of
all our needs. This is the reason we say it
is not a "gut" issue, but we feel is one we
should bring before the Committee of the
Whole to determine whether or not it
wanted to provide for some flexibility in
the document, specifically, with respect to
judicial power. For that reason I am going
to vote for our amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN. Delegate Mudd, you
have three minutes left of controlled de-
bate in this portion.
DELEGATE MUDD: Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
I respectfully disagree, ladies and gentle-
men of the Committee of the Whole with
two observations by the distinguished Dele-
gate Johnson who speaks for the minority.
It seems to me that this is a "gut" issue.
It goes to the core of the overall idea of
the majority.
We do not imply that it is the intention
of the minority at this time or any future
time to disrupt or impair in any way the
unified court structure proposed by the ma-
jority report.
We do suggest that by this amendment
the minority may inadvertently open the
gates to the legislature, not necessarily
now, but in the years to come, unintention-
ally create a special court that could com-
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pletely disrupt the orderly housekeeping
responsibilities of a unified, uniform court
structure.
It is that fear which prompts the ma-
jority to urge you to vote against this
amendment. In the humble judgment of the
majority our key responsibility is to have
this Convention adopt the essentials of a
unified, uniform court structure to best
serve the people of Maryland.
THE CHAIRMAN: There is now avail-
able under the debate schedule fifteen min-
utes of uncontrolled but limited debate.
The Chair first recognizes anyone de-
siring to speak in favor of the amendment.
Do you desire to speak in favor Delegate
Rybczynski?
DELEGATE RYBCZYNSKI: Yes, sir.
Before you start your stop-watch, I would
greatly appreciate your welcoming to our
Convention two gentlemen sitting over
your left shoulder. State Commander James
Gay and First Vice Commander Francis
Connor of the Catholic War Veterans of
Maryland, who are here this morning to
see the Governor on official business and
who are sitting here to observe our pro-
ceedings.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delighted to have
them with us.
(Applause.)
Before you start to speak, the Chair also
would like to recognize the presence in the
rear gallery of forty ninth grade students
from South Carroll High School in Carroll
County. Delighted to have them with us.
(Applause.)
THE CHAIRMAN: Now, Delegate Ryb-
czynski, the stop-watch.
DELEGATE RYBCZYNSKI: Mr. Chair-
man, I think that most of the people in
this room who are not lawyers will be
greatly surprised to learn that today, this
very minute, and for quite some time, the
State of Maryland has been operating un-
der a four-tier system. We have on the one
side of our building a Court of Appeals, on
the other side of our building we have a
Special Court of Appeals, on the Church
circle we have a Circuit Court, which is
the third tier, and in the basement of that
same building is the People's Court, which
amounts to a four-tier.
This is in existence today. And as part
of that existing system, we also have some
specialty courts.
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