Court Opinion

ID: 9739443
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:14:55.414236+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:12.245225
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE JIGANTI, dissenting: Themis Anagnost is 78 years old and seeking to be a candidate for the Illinois Supreme Court. The Illinois Constitution empowers the legislature to “provide by law for the retirement of Judges and Associate Judges at a prescribed age.” (Ill. Const. 1970, art. VI, § 15(a).) The legislature has acted upon that empowerment and has provided that a judge will be “automatically retired at the expiration of the term in which the judge attains the age of 75.” (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1989, ch. 37, par. 23.71.) In holding that Anagnost may appear on the judicial ballot, the court interprets the statute as applying to sitting judges and not to judges seeking judicial office. (230 Ill. App. 3d at 544.) The only legal rationale given is that the legislature “failed to enact appropriate legislation that would bar a person over the age of 75 *** from running in a judicial election.” 230 Ill. App. 3d at 544. The obverse of the majority’s rationale is that the legislature has the power to bar a candidate from seeking judicial office because of retirement age. With this I agree. I disagree with the majority when it very narrowly interprets the statute which states that a judge is “automatically retired” applies only to sitting judges. The holding effectively is that a judge may seek election while beyond retirement age but not retention. While there arguably may be a difference between seeking election and seeking retention, in this context of retirement there is no meaningful distinction. The statute should be interpreted as saying that no person shall seek a judicial office when beyond the retirement age. The holding that a judge beyond retirement age may seek election but not retention brings about an absurd result. The law presumes the legislature does not intend an absurd result. Stewart v. Industrial Comm’n (1987), 115 Ill. 2d 337, 341, 504 N.E.2d 84.