EDITORIAL
Kentucky government is organized into three branches, the Executive Branch, the Legislative Branch and the Judicial Branch. In 1976 the people of Kentucky re-organized the judicial branch by adopting a Constitutional Amendment, by way of which it created a governing body called the Supreme Court.
In part in response to the judicial trend of giving death sentence appellants a two level appeals process and in part to take the incredible burden off of Kentucky's then highest court to both hear ALL appeals while at the same time governing the entire judicial branch of government, the members of the then existing Court of Appeals were promoted to the Supreme Court, and a new Court of Appeals was created.
The new Supreme Court was charged under the amendment with the primary duty to oversee the entire judicial branch, including the administrative office of the courts, the conduct of all judges, the admission of persons to the practice of law as well as securing and managing the budget for the entire system.
To lessen the burden on that new court to hear appeals, it was only required to hear a certain class of "mandatory" cases. All other appeals could be heard by the new court only if they chose to do so in their sole discretion.
Over the years since the supreme court has chosen to immerse itself in thousands of cases which it was not required to hear. Instead of concentrating its efforts solely on the improvement of courthouses, improvements in the delivery of justice and expediency to the public and the needs of the practicing bar, the court has chosen instead to pontificate on one topic after another. This very liberal exercise of discretion has led to an increase in the cost of litigation, substantial delays in final resolution of cases, and resulted in an arrogance not seen in the political aspects of running either of the other two entire branches of government.
Now the Supreme Court has by default declared itself "off limits" when it comes to certain open records requests. Why the public which is paying for them cannot see the salaries or expenses of certain of those working for the Supreme Court through its various boards and commissions is a question without a good answer. But the Supreme Court likes to think of itself as above all that, which is a view repugnant to its own policy of transparency.
The Supreme Court of Kentucky needs to be put in its place. It was created to govern the judicial branch. Its appellate obligations were therefore severely limited in order to allow for more governmental functions to be handled by them. The protectionist attitude the court has adopted resulting in the "behind closed doors" approach to budget and salary information needs to be abandoned.
We The People pay for these things. We have every right to know how our money is being spent.
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