(Host) The Senate has approved a bill that restructures Vermont’s judicial system.
The vote sets the stage for a battle with the House, in the next few days, over the future role of side judges.
VPR’s Bob Kinzel reports.
(Kinzel) The major goal of the legislation is to reduce costs by streamlining the operations of Vermont’s judicial system so that the courts can return to a schedule when they’re open five days a week. Right now they’re closed 2½ days a month.
The bill consolidates the state’s five courts into one unified system under the administration of the Vermont Supreme Court.
Senate Judiciary chairman Dick Sears urged his colleagues to support the plan:
(Sears) "There will bumps in the road as we move through this system. I don’t want to over promise in the bill. I want to make sure people realize things may happen but I do believe that there’s a commitment from the Court Administrator’s office to work to have as little disruption as possible as the new world starts and that’s the best we can promise."
(Kinzel) For several hours, members of the Senate debated whether or not locally elected probate judges should be required to be lawyers. Sears argued against the plan:
(Sears) "What would be next? Should we require that the chair of the health and welfare committee be a medical professional? Maybe we should require that the chair of the Appropriations committee be an accountant. Those are the kinds of things Mr. President that you could see happen. I think this is a slippery slope."
(Kinzel) Rutland senator Peg Flory defended the legal requirement because she says probate judges have to consider very complicated issues these:
(Flory) "Probate Court deals with wills, estates, guardianships of adults, guardianships of children adoptions, a lot of real estate issues and a lot of trust issues that a lot of attorneys struggle with."
(Kinzel) By a vote of 16 to 14, the Senate supported the legal requirement for the probate judges.
Now the House and Senate will meet to decide the fate of Vermont’s 28 elected side judges. The House wants to limit the duties of the judges to just Traffic Court, while the Senate wants to allow these judges to continue to act as "finders of fact" in Superior and Family Court.
There’s tremendous pressure to pass this bill this session and that means House and Senate negotiators will have only a few days to work out a compromise.
For VPR News, I’m Bob Kinzel in Montpelier.