Pols pitch bill to eliminate mandatory retirement age for some judges
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Assemblymember Charles Lavine is carrying a bill in the Assembly that would eliminate the mandatory retirement age for some judges in New York. Photo via Lavine/X
By Jacob Kaye
Lawmakers last week introduced a bill that would eliminate the mandatory retirement age for a group of judges in New York.
The bill, introduced by State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Assemblymember Charles Lavine, would make it so judges sitting on the bench in the state’s town, village or city courts outside of New York City would not have to retire after the age of 70, as currently required by law.
The bill would not be extended to judges working in the Court of Appeals, Supreme Court, Court of Claims, County Court, Surrogate’s Court, Family Court, New York City Court or District Court.
The narrow scope of the bill has to do with the law itself – judges in city, town and village courts are required to retire at the age of 70 as per the state’s judiciary law, which is relatively easy to amend. Judges sitting in the other courts in New York are mandated to retire at the age of 70 as per the state’s constitution, which is far more difficult to change.
The lawmakers behind the bill, which has been introduced in Albany before, say the legislation is intended to utilize the knowledge of aging jurists and to help alleviate the court system’s backlog that has increased across courts in New York since the start of the pandemic.
“We are not in a position to waste our assets,” Lavine, who represents a portion of Nassau County just across the border of Queens, told the Eagle in a phone interview on Tuesday.
“We are still facing a substantial backlog of cases as a result of the COVID pandemic and anything that we can do to ease that backlog is certainly in the best interests of the people of the state of New York and in the best interests of justice,” he added.
Lavine and Hoylman-Sigal’s bill was introduced in the same vein as a separate bill from Bronx Assemblymember Jeffrey Dinowitz, which would have made changes to the retirement process for judges whose retirement age is determined by the constitution.
That bill would have essentially made the recertification of older judges an automatic process – however, Governor Kathy Hochul vetoed it twice after it got majority support in the legislature.
Popular with lawmakers and elected judges, the bill would have made the recertification of judges 70 years or older a pro forma process. Rather than make their appeal to the Administrative Board of the Courts – as is the current process – the judges would be recertified if they proved mentally and physically fit and if there was a proven need for them on the bench, under the legislation.
Once a Supreme Court judge hits the age of 70, they are required to apply for recertification to serve in the judiciary. They are again required to reapply at the ages of 72 and 74, and are required to retire at the age of 76.
Hochul said last year that Dinowtiz’s bill would wrongly take “discretion” to recertify judges out of the hands of the board.
“The Administrative Board considers various factors when determining whether to recertify a retiring judge or justice, including, for example, whether the justice has been the subject of complaints or involved in activities that undermine public confidence and trust in the courts,” Hochul said.
The bill also was introduced in conjunction with a separate effort to amend the state’s constitution that would push judges’ mandatory retirement age from 70 to 76.
The constitutional amendment is being carried by Dinowitz and Hoylman-Sigal.
“Ultimately, the age limits for judges set about in our constitution are problematic and should be raised, if not eliminated entirely,” Hoylman-Sigal said in a statement to the Eagle. “We are currently working on a constitutional amendment to do this, but passing an amendment takes much longer than passing a bill.”
“Though our law would not go as far as the constitutional amendment would, it could provide at least some judges relief until we are able to formally amend our constitution to impact all our judges, making it a worthwhile endeavor,” he added.
The bills were introduced after former Chief Judge Janet DiFiore and the court system’s leadership decided not to recertify nearly 50 aging justices in 2020. The austerity measure caused rancor among judges, court staff and lawmakers.
Despite the fact that the judges were later given the opportunity to reapply for certification, the decision from DiFiore and then-Chief Administrative Judge Lawrence Marks appeared to have created a permanent rift between the judiciary and court leadership.
Lawmakers began crafting bills to prevent a mass recertification inside the state’s courts from happening again.
But thus far, none have been successfully passed into law.
Lavine and Hoylman-Sigal’s bill was previously introduced in the 2021-2022 legislative session but did not make it out of committee.
The bill was recently reintroduced by Hoylman-Sigal in the Senate and is currently awaiting a vote from the full legislative body after unanimously being passed by its Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by Hoylman-Sigal.
The bill’s Assembly counterpart has yet to be taken up by the Assembly’s Judiciary Committee.
Lavine told the Eagle on Tuesday that the legislation aims to address what the lawmakers say is age discrimination against aging judges.
“Our view on aging has dramatically changed,” Lavine said. “I do believe that we want to make sure that our courts function and function well, and we want to make sure that we do not lose any of our judicial assets.”
The bill itself claims that the “mandatory retirement age discriminates against judges and justices on the basis of age, which is not permissible in any other realm.”
“Until the Constitution can be amended, this statutory change will provide relief to at least some judges and justices,” the bill continues.
Lavine said that despite the troubles the legislature has had getting the judicial retirement bills passed into law, the lawmakers will continue to introduce them and push for their passage.
“We can continue to discuss and consider the issues, and the best way for us to do that is to introduce these bills, and discuss them with the courts and with the governor's office,” he said. “It's either that or we give up – and we're not giving up.”
The Office of Court Administration did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.
