Time for a Justice Court Overhaul

If you have been watching carefully, you have seen the NY Times series about NY State's byzantine and outdated local Justice Court system. Besides being grossly deficient in terms of training, abuses by individual local justices were rampant. Tuesday, a proposal was floated by Judge Judith Kaye, NY's chief judge, to revamp the system.

link to full NY Times Article (free registration may be required)

As outlined by a series of articles in The New York Times in September, the courts have survived in part because the justices — most of them not even lawyers — have longstanding and deep ties to the upstate political system, and because of the substantial cost of replacing them with more professional courts.

link to short Albany Times Union report

"Of the six million new cases filed annually in New York's courts, two million alone are initiated or adjudicated in the justice courts," Chief Judge Judith Kaye said. "These courts must provide the same high standard of justice the public expects and deserves from any court in New York."

... Kaye and Chief Administrative Judge Jonathan Lippman said $10 million will be added initially to the state Judiciary's 2007-2008 budget request.

The good news? $10M is only about 1/1000th of $11B