Bill to prevent mass judicial layoffs passes legislature
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Queens Supreme Court Justice Ira Margulis returned to his chambers on Tuesday, June 14, 2021. Eagle file photo by David Brand
By Jacob Kaye
Last year, nearly every judge over the age of 70 had their applications for recertification denied by the Office of Court Administration but a new bill, recently passed in both the State Senate and Assembly, aims to make sure that never happens again.
The bill, which is awaiting a signature from the governor, would change one key word to the state’s judicial law to make a judge’s recertification efforts all but certain should they meet the necessary requirements.
The state’s judiciary law currently states that judges over 70 years old “may” be recertified if they’re proven to be mentally and physically fit and if there is a need for them on the bench. If signed into law, it will be amended to read that judges “shall” be recertified if they meet both qualifications.
“There's a major backlog of cases from the pandemic, and even pre-pandemic, because there haven't been enough hours for judges to handle everything that's been going on,” said Queens Senator Leroy Comrie, a co-sponsor of the bill. “It only made sense to me that we have as many experienced judges, especially those that had good records, to be able to stay and try to help address this backlog of cases.”
“As long as judges have a good record, they should be able to get the recertification if they desire to keep going,” he added.
The move to pass the bill comes a little less than a year after 46 New York State judges had their applications for recertification denied by the OCA, which claimed to be facing budget difficulties in the wake of the pandemic.
“To just take a whole bunch of the justices in the name of austerity, it was wrong,” said Queens Supreme Court Justice Carmen Velasquez, who also serves as the president of the Association of Supreme Court Justices of the State of New York. “We saw the necessity [of these bills] to protect the integrity of the judges.”
“We need the judges, we need a Supreme Court,” she added.
The OCA is in the “process of reviewing” the bills, according to an agency spokesperson.
Facing a large backlog of cases and an infusion of cash in the court system’s budget, the OCA approved the recertification of 36 New York State Supreme Court justices last week and invited them to return to the bench starting Tuesday.
One of the judges returning is Queens Supreme Court Justice Ira Margulis, who told the Eagle that he was “so happy to return to work.”
“I was miserable being retired,” he said. “So I'm happy to come back.”
But while the bill aims to make the forced retirement of judges a thing of the past, the fallout from the OCA’s decision remains.
Returning judges were made aware of which court they’d be presiding over just days before they were set to come back to work and many of them will return without a staff.
“This is only a two year term,” Margulis said. “It's hard to get anybody when they know that it's two years and maybe a little bit longer, but they don't want to take that chance.”
It’s also not guaranteed that the justices will return to the courts they once worked in, many of them for years, where they developed specific knowledge and skills particular to that court.
Margulis will return to Queens County Supreme Court, Criminal Term on Tuesday but will also begin presiding over custody cases in Family Court, which faces a massive backlog following the pandemic. Margulis offered to serve as a volunteer judge earlier this year as the case load piled up.
“The last several months I said I would volunteer to do that,” he said. “I'm happy to help out where I can.”
But he will first have trained on the court, which he’s been told will take place soon.
Velasquez worries that despite the invitation to return, many judges may find the process too hectic and disorganized and decide ultimately to stay retired.
She’s already heard from three recertified judges who said they wouldn’t be returning.
In a separate effort to boost the number of Supreme Court justices in New York State, a bill passed in the Senate and Assembly that would increase the number of justices in the majority of judicial districts in the state.
If signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Queens will get an additional Supreme Court justice. However, the hope was to get more than one justice, according to Comrie who also served as a co-sponsor on the bill.
“We’re going to get one additional one in Queens, unfortunately, I was hoping for more, but they claimed that because of the census numbers...we're only getting one more,” Comrie said. “We need experienced judges, especially in a system where it could take six months to eight months to get a hearing. We need as many judges as we can get right now.”
