Court Opinion

ID: 9709633
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 03:52:31.30258+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:50.617474
License: Public Domain

HUTCHINSON, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I agree with the majority that Subsection 404(d) of the Act of October 4, 1978, P.L. 883, No. 170, effective January 1, 1979, 65 P.S. § 401-413, known as the “Ethics Act”, is unconstitutional insofar as it purports automatically to remove from office members of the judiciary who fail to file, or falsely file, the disclosure statements required by Section *364404. Articles V and VI of our Constitution provide the sole methods for removing members of the judiciary from office and those procedures cannot be interfered with any more than we of the judiciary could interfere with the prerogative of the legislature in expelling its duly elected members.
I do not see, however, how a provision requiring members of the judiciary to file statements of financial interest as otherwise prescribed in Section 404 of the Act so interferes with the judicial function as to make it unconstitutional under the doctrine of separation of powers. The majority reasons fallaciously when it assumes that everything which affects the judiciary unconstitutionally interferes with it. Members of the judiciary are both citizens and public officials. As such, they can be required to meet the obligations and perform the duties imposed uniformly upon other citizens, or uniformly upon other officials, under pain of criminal sanction, unless the imposition of that duty prevents them from carrying out the traditional function of the judiciary. See United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 94 S.Ct. 3090, 41 L.Ed.2d 1039 (1974). I am totally at a loss to understand how the requirement that a financial interest statement of the type set forth in Section 404 prevents any of us from carrying out our function of judging cases.
I fully understand the reluctance of judges and, indeed, of all citizens who seek or hold public office, to make these disclosures. Indeed, reasonable men may well debate the wisdom and utility of imposing such requirements on those who hold or seek public office. To the extent that it deters suitable individuals from seeking or holding public office, the requirement of financial disclosure interfers with the legislative and executive branches to the same extent that it does with the judiciary. Such an interference is not an unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers.
I would find the financial disclosure provisions of the Ethics Act binding on the judiciary to the same extent as they are binding on public officials in the other coordinate branches of government. If it is believed that the removal provisions of the statute, as applied to the judiciary, render *365application to them of any part of it unconstitutional, I would, as a matter of comity between coordinate branches, adopt the disclosure provisions of Section 405 of the Act and require the judiciary to observe them, to the same extent as other public officials are required to observe them under our Article V, Section 10, power to administer and supervise the judicial system.
NIX, J., joins in this opinion.