Opinion ID: 2077498
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Writ or Administrative Review

Text: In addition, Cook County urges that because administrative review by the appellate court is now available in representation cases and unfair labor practice cases (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1987, ch. 48, pars. 1609(i), 1611(e)), the four chief judges have a remedy other than the writ they seek. However, the four chief judges point to appellate delay during any review as threatening the smooth operation of the court system and possibly causing irreparable harm to their employment relationship with their employees. We agree that such results are likely and that appellate proceedings would inadequately remedy them. The effects of improperly ordered certification or bargaining would not easily be undone, if at all. Positions taken, agreements reached, and appropriations made would be on public view and formalized on the public record in a way seldom if ever equaled in private-sector collective bargaining. Even if such consequences may be said to ensue from all public-sector certification or bargaining orders that are ultimately reversed on appeal, the vital public interest in an efficient, continually functioning, and independent court system furnishes additional reason for us to conclude that administrative review would be inadequate in this case. See People ex rel. No. 3 J. & E. Discount, Inc. v. Whitler (1980), 81 Ill.2d 473, 483-84; People ex rel. Swift v. Superior Court (1935), 359 Ill. 612, 618-19; People ex rel. Modern Woodmen of America v. Circuit Court (1931), 347 Ill. 34, 40, 44-45. Finally, according to the four chief judges' reply brief, the orders in Chief Judges Orenic's and McCarthy's cases were entered before the July 1, 1988, effective date of the statutory amendment granting them the right of administrative review (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1987, ch. 48, par. 1609(i)), and those chief judges would therefore not be entitled to such review. And, because of what we are advised was IBEW's loss of its representation election, Chief Judge Pearman might be held to lack standing as an aggrieved party (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1987, ch. 48, par. 1609(i)) to seek such review of the order entered in his case. In any event, at the time of filing their petition, three of the four chief judges could not have obtained such administrative review, because no final Board orders had been entered in their cases. Hence, if they had a right to the relief sought at the time of filing their petition, that right should not necessarily be defeated by any subsequent theoretical ripeness of their cases for administrative review; and if the fourth petitioner, Chief Judge Rapp, had an independent right to the relief he sought when he joined in the petition, any concurrent availability of administrative review is no bar, particularly in light of the inadequacy of such review to avert the claimed potential harm to the judicial system.