NJ: All 7 members of Governor's Judicial Advisory Committee Resign

The New Jersey Constitution empowers governors to choose who to appoint to the Supreme Court and whom to nominate for tenure after the initial 7 year term. But no governor had conditioned tenure on ideological grounds until Governor Chris Christie, complaining about "judicial activism", refused to propose for tenure Associate Justice John Wallace.  for the past two months this break with tradition has provoked a storm in the state's legal community, as the Star Ledger reports.

Concerned that the message to toe-the-line would interfere dangerously with the independence of trial judges, the Governor's Advisory Council on Judicial Appointments has resigned en masse.
"Because of our abiding commitment to the independence of the judiciary, we cannot in good conscience continue to serve," wrote retired Chief Justice Deborah Poritz; retired Associate Justices Alan Handler, Stewart Pollock and James Coleman Jr.; Susan Lederman, a public administration professor at Kean University, and Carlos Ortiz, general counsel of Goya Foods.

New Jersey's judiciary is entirely appointive.  Governors nominate subject to the Senate's advice and consent for a seven year term, after which the process is repeated and tenure granted until the mandatory retirement age of seventy.   The six signers wrote "The panel has understood a judge serving honorably and effectively, with competence and integrity, will achieve tenure in judicial office."   But the Governor has a"profoundly different view of the governor's appointive responsibilities," they added. "This was exemplified by your actions and remarks in refusing to reappoint Justice John Wallace to the Supreme Court, a jurist who indisputably exemplified all qualifications for honorable service."

As the New Jersey Law Journal   account observes

For the four ex-justices on the panel, the resignation letter was a reprise of criticism they made in May along with four other former state Supreme Court jurists. The eight broke with the tradition of reticence among retired justices and denounced Christie's decision not to reappoint Wallace.

Four of the signers are among the eight retired Justices of the state Supreme Court who protested Christie's refusl to nominate Wallace for tenure.  The State Senate has said it will not take up the nomination of Anne Patterson, the proposed replacement, until Wallace's 70th birthday - 22 months from now.
Images: Christie, Patterson, Wallace