Opinion ID: 1294897
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: institutional considerations; avoiding constitutional adjudication

Text: The Dostert majority should have avoided the issue of the constitutionality of the judicial retirement system. Even if one could somehow conclude that the Dostert issues were technically constitutional, it was clearly indiscrete and gave rise to appearances of impropriety for the Court to interfere with the functions of the legislature in an area where the Court had a pecuniary interest. [23] Justice Neely, dissenting in Dostert, said that his most militant objection to the decision ... can be stated clearly and succinctly: Nemo debet esse judex in propria causa  [24] (no man ought to be a judge in his own cause). [25] It is a fundamental rule of constitutional adjudication that constitutional questions are avoided unless absolutely necessary. [26] Knowing of its own self-interest and knowing the importance of the appearance of justice, the Dostert majority should have used good sense and avoided the constitutional question. Institutional prudencebalancing the desirability of judicial intervention against the devastating institutional and political costshould have been enough for the Court to have avoided the judicial pension issue in the Dostert case. In Dostert, where it was unnecessary to even reach the constitutional issue, a sense of self-restraint clearly should have been exercised by this Court. [27]