http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/27/nyregion/commission-raises-ny-judges-pay-27-over-3-years.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2
NY TIMES
Commission Raises N.Y. Judges’ Pay 27% Over 3 Years
By WILLIAM GLABERSON
Published: August 26, 2011
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My Take
Wrong Move at the Wrong Time
The NY judges pay-raise is a mockery of America, and a kick from capitalism. We are in times of shrinking prices in real estate, people are losing their jobs, salaries and benefits are being reduced, and economists see nothing but doom and gloom. These are times of belt-tightening while judges are getting a 27% pay raise; something is wrong.
These raises all get back to royal traditions and classism, where the purpose of power and influence is simply to line their pockets, with one hand washing the other.
There is no way that a judge or politician or any ruler or king or president can properly have a sound judgment of its subjects when the level of comfort or has a wide gap between ruler and ruled. Those rulers simply do not understand the needs nor the motivations for people’s acts, when those rulers don’t know the conditions where the average citizen lives.
How can a judge fairly judge an unemployed father with back child-support, or a mother who shop-lifted a loaf of bread to feed the children, when the judge has a guaranteed job with all the comforts of a secured home, and with plenty on the table? Despite all the rules, that judge will never understand the pains inside those people whom he or she condemns.
Some people say that keeping judges well paid will deter corruption. If corruption can only be deterred by the judges getting confortable salaries, than those judges area nothing but a bunch of dishonest lawyers who got to be judges by having good connections. If that is the case we need common people to be judges, for the lawyers are the ones who need to present the evidence.
Jurors don’t have any law-training to decide who is guilty or innocent. That means that judges are obsolete. Therefore, judges don’t need to be paid more than the average, citizen or juror.
