An Injustice for Judges

An Injustice for Judges

The state's Chief Judge, Judith Kaye, had said prior to a Nov. 12 speech at New York University that she planned to avoid talking about judges' pay in what amounted to a farewell address before she steps down at year's end after reaching the mandatory retirement age of 70.

The fact that she then devoted part of the speech to decrying the decade-long freeze shows how strongly she feels about the subject, and with justification.

For ordinary workers in city and state government, who are faced with benefit cuts and possibly even layoffs because of severe budget problems, there may be some difficulty feeling much sympathy for judges who are paid $136,700 a year.

But unlike unionized workers, they don't have a bargaining mechanism in place to help them be reasonably compensated. Aggrieved Sewage Treatment Workers turned out last week at City Hall to protest going seven years without a pay raise, but they, through their union, at least had a say in the matter. They have chosen to hold out for raises that would make salaries consistent with what is paid to equivalent jobs in private industry, rather than accepting the same hikes the Bloomberg administration has given to other members of their parent union, District Council 37.

In the judges' case, they have been held hostage by the State Legislature, whose members want to tie their own pay hikes to those granted to judges. As a result, judges' pay has lagged even though nobody disputes that they are not sufficiently compensated when compared to their counterparts in the Federal Government, who receive better than $30,000 more in salary.

Last year, then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer called for raising state judges' pay but made a boost for legislators contingent upon their agreeing to ethics reforms, prompting legislative leaders to torpedo hikes for all concerned. This year, Governor Paterson tabled the idea on economic grounds without even addressing whether increases for the judiciary should be considered separately.

And so we have what should be an embarrassing spectacle of judges — whose stature would normally make place them among the high-achievers in the legal profession — being paid less than first-year associates at some top city law firms. While those who go on the bench usually don't do it for the money, that state of affairs is not exactly an incentive for high-caliber lawyers to seek judicial positions.

A couple of lawsuits have been brought against the long pay freeze; Judge Kaye is a plaintiff in one of them and has offered to testify in the other. But whether through the courts or state action, it is clear that something must be done to cut the link between pay raises for judges and for legislators — who have no limits on their outside income — to end what the Chief Judge rightly described as a situation that is "frustrating and demoralizing beyond description."