Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 24.pdf/443

 The Editor's Bag THE REMOVAL OF JUDGES FOR INCOMPETENCE IT IS seriously proposed to change the practice in impeachment pro ceedings, so as to make the removal of judges for corruption simpler and more expeditious, and there is nothing revo lutionary in such a plan. It would be nothing more than a wholesome exten sion of our corrupt practices legislation to a field where, to be sure, there is no momentous public exigency calling for the innovation, but where, neverthe less, it is well to facilitate the swift and sure application of justice. It is also proposed to make it possible to remove judges for incompetence, and this proposal is more closely con nected with the proposed popular re call than is the plan for simplified im peachment. Unlike the project for popular recall, the plan to which we refer contemplates the removal of judges not by popular vote, but by the action of some responsible public agency, such as the upper branch of the legislature, or in the case of judges of inferior courts, by the supreme court. A method of getting rid of unfit judges by a method not allowing popular caprice free play is entirely practicable. Whether it would be either useful to the community or acceptable to the elements asking for the recall is of course a different matter. We are bound to suffer from more or less incompetence on the bench at all times, and human nature has not

reached that state of perfection which would insure the success of any system, however intelligently devised, of select ing and removing judges. A public not shrewd enough to select competent public servants ought to admit frankly that a bad condition can be remedied only by a more intelligent discharge of the duty of citizenship; an electorate simply by recalling its officials cannot thereby recall its own blunders. ^Re garded in' this light, the popular initia tive and referendum are objectionable not only for the reason that they tend to lessen the responsiblity of represen tatives of the people in the legislature, but for the weightier reason that they impair that popular sense of respon sibility which is necessary to insure good government. There is the same objection to any attempt to mitigate the evil of popular indiscretion by facil itating the removal of judges who owe their election or appointment, directly or indirectly, to the free exercise' of popular sovereignty. A community which chooses its judges by direct popular vote would be apt to recoil from the inconsistency of dele gating the removal of its judges to a responsible organ of the government, and communities which have an ap pointive judiciary, while they could consistently confer on the appointing power the power of removal, are likely to recognize the propriety of insisting on appointments of such merit that they will not need to be recalled. A gov ernment is not strengthened but de