Commission's influence far-reaching
| • | Functional or not, 'it's the chief's court' |
By Lynda Arakawa
Advertiser Capitol Bureau
In some ways, the Judicial Selection Commission has almost as much power as the governor in determining who serves on the bench. It has absolute power on the question of whether judges and justices can serve succeeding terms.
The governor appoints judges to the Circuit Court, Intermediate Court of Appeals and the Hawai'i Supreme Court, while the Supreme Court chief justice makes appointments to the District Court bench.
But the governor and chief justice must choose from a short list made by the nine-member Judicial Selection Commission, which reviews all applicants for judicial positions. The governor's list has between four and six names, and the chief justice chooses from a list of at least six names.
The members, who serve staggered six-year terms, also determine whether a justice or judge shall be retained.
But because the commission views its work confidentially based on a provision in the state constitution, it does not explain why it chose applicants or approved or rejected requests by judges and justices for succeeding terms.
Gov. Linda Lingle expressed some annoyance with the list she received for her first selection to the Hawai'i Supreme Court.
Shortly after announcing her appointment of James Duffy as Hawai'i Supreme Court associate justice, Lingle said while she was very happy with Duffy, she hopes future lists from the commission will be "more balanced."
"I would think in the future as we start to get more variety on the Judicial Selection Commission, I do think and I do hope we'll get more balance of nominees between people who have been on the prosecution side as well as the defense side," Lingle said. "If you look at various lists ... you would probably see a pattern of not many, if any, who have been prosecutors."
Other legal observers have also said that those on the list Lingle had to choose from had relatively liberal backgrounds, which is likely because six of the nine commission members were appointed by Democrats.
The governor, House speaker, Senate president and the Hawai'i State Bar Association each choose two commission members, while the chief justice appoints one member. Lingle recently appointed Dr. Philip Hellreich, a political ally, to the commission, and is scheduled to make another appointment to the commission in 2005.
Other members of the commission are attorneys John Edmunds, Arthur Park, Sidney Ayabe and Rosemary Fazio, bank executive Lionel Tokioka, insurance executive Lois Suzawa, finance executive Melvin Chiba and former International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1186 leader Thomas Fujikawa.
