Marcia Oddi at the Indiana Law Blog has an excellent entry about the discussion of judicial mandates before the legislature’s Commission on Courts. The problem, generally, is this: county councils are restricted in their ability to raise funds. And, they have to fund a lot of competing departments, most of which would prefer more money.
One of the entities the councils have to fund are the local courts. However, unlike other department heads, judges are allowed to issue mandates — orders compelling the council to provide funds. There is a procedure by which mandates can be evaluated by other judges, but the track record runs pretty solidly in favor of judicial approval of judicial mandates. This good track record could well be because the mandates and the judges who issue them are, in most cases, quite reasonable. However, with other judges upholding judicial prerogatives, it’s hard to avoid at least an appearance of impartiality. One solution kicked about by the council is requiring the State to fund the courts. Another issue is that of attorneys fees. When a county challenges a judicial mandate, the county has to pay for the attorney fees of both sides. This gets expensive; especially given the tendency of both sides to run to the highest priced Indianapolis law firms for representation. There was some discussion of having the Attorney General’s office represent the judges as it does in other kinds of litigation.
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