New Judiciary Article for the New York Constitution

Abstract

This essay suggests adoption of proposed article VI (Judiciary) as the substitute for present article VI (Judiciary) of the New York Constitution.

Proposed article VI is needed, because present article VI is verbose, and the present New York court structure is complex.

Verbosity: There are 15,397 words in present article VI. That is 31% of the approximately 49,300 words in the entire Constitution.

To cure verbosity, proposed article VI has 4,149 words (computer-generated word count). That is a reduction of the size of article VI by more than 70%.

Complexity: There are fifteen courts. Some courts are for the whole state, and some courts are for parts of the state. There are several ways to select judges.
To cure complexity, proposed article VI prescribes six courts. All the courts, except the Town Courts, would be state-wide courts. There would be but two ways of selecting judges: nomination by a governor and confirmation by the consent of the Senate, and election.

The names of the major New York courts (Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Court of Appeals) would be retained in proposed article VI, except that the name of the Supreme Court would revert to Supreme Court of Judicature, its original name.
Many jurisdictions across the common-law world, New York among them, are served by a Supreme Court or by a Supreme Court of Judicature, the distinctive feature of which is general original jurisdiction. Further, the names of the major New York courts have deep roots in the past. Continuity of nomenclature is an aspect of legitimacy.

Other essays about revision of the New York Constitution are:

New Preamble and New Bill of Rights Article for the New York Constitution
New Suffrage Article for the New York Constitution
New Legislature Article for the New York Constitution
New Executive Article for the New York Constitution
New Officers and Civil Departments Article for the New York Constitution
New Local Governments Article for the New York Constitution
Eight New Articles for the New York Constitution
See Supreme Courts as Courts of General Original Jurisdiction
Corpulent Paychecks for New York Judges and Justices

Keywords: city court, civil court, county court, criminal court, district court, judicial conduct, jury trial, justice court, Trial Division, village court

JEL Classification: K19, K30, K40, K41