Vesselin Mitev and Daniel Wise
New York Law Journal
April 30, 2008
Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye wrote New York Gov. David A. Paterson Tuesday to assure him that reports of judicial "slowdown" were "without basis."
In addition, the court system's Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics issued an opinion Monday determining that Kaye's recent lawsuit to compel an increase in judicial salaries does not require judges to recuse themselves, but they may do so as a matter of individual conscience.
On Monday, Paterson cautioned the state's judges against engaging in any tactic that would slow litigation in order to press their case for a raise. A day earlier The New York Post had reported that increasing numbers of judges, most of them upstate, were refusing to hear cases where law firms with state legislators as members are appearing before them.
In her letter to Paterson Tuesday, Kaye wrote, "while some judges have individually chosen to recuse themselves from matters in which legislators or their firms appeared before them, there has not been -- nor will there be -- an adverse impact on litigants."
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