Court Opinion

ID: 9703072
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:38:34.585548+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:45.276855
License: Public Domain

GARIBALDI, J.,
dissenting.
Today, the majority holds that Norma Randolph, a $7,000-a-year court aide who is an employee of the Sheriff’s Office, is prohibited by Rule 1:17-1 from exercising her First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and association because her activities in certain organizations constitute a threat to the impartiality and independence of the judiciary. As a matter of both constitutional law and public policy, I would allow Randolph to serve as well as to speak. Accordingly, I dissent.
I
The constitutional basis for my position is found in the fundamental liberties protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution and article one, paragraphs six and eighteen of the New Jersey Constitution (1947).
The First Amendment “was fashioned to assure [the] unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the people.” Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 77 S.Ct. 1304, 1 L.Ed.2d 1498 (1957). Furthermore,
[i]t is beyond debate that freedom to engage in association for the advancement of beliefs and ideas is an inseparable aspect of the “liberty” assured by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which embraces freedom of speech.
[NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449, 460, 78 S.Ct. 1163, 1171, 2 L.Ed.2d 1488, 1498 (1958).]
*461Similarly, article one, paragraphs six and eighteen of the New Jersey Constitution
not only affirmatively guarantee!] to individuals the rights of speech and assembly, but also expressly prohibit!] government itself, in a manner analogous to the federal First and Fourteenth Amendments, from unlawfully restraining or abridging “the liberty of speech.”
[State v. Schmid, 84 N.J. 535, 560 (1980).]
In Schmid, moreover, we concluded that the State Constitution “serves to thwart inhibitory actions which unreasonably frustrate, infringe, or obstruct the expressional and associational rights of individuals____” Id. at 560.
In NAACP v. Alabama, the Supreme Court recognized that “[i]n the domain of these indispensable liberties, whether of speech, press, or association,” abridgement even though unintended “may inevitably follow from varied forms of governmental action.” 357 U.S. at 460, 78 S.Ct. at 1170, 2 L.Ed.2d at 1499.
Although the prohibition on encroachment of First-Amendment liberties is not absolute, the Supreme Court has held:
It is firmly established that a significant impairment of First Amendment rights must survive exacting scrutiny____Thus encroachment “cannot be justified upon a mere showing of a legitimate state interest.” The interest advanced must be paramount, one of vital importance, and the burden is on the government to show the existence of such an interest.
[Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 362, 96 S.Ct. 2673, 2684, 49 L.Ed.2d 547, 559 (1976) (citations omitted).]
This Court likewise has held that restrictions on rights of speech and association are subject to strict judicial scrutiny. In In re Hinds, we held that such limitations must “further an important or substantial governmental interest unrelated to the suppression of expression,” and “be no greater than is necessary or essential to the protection of the particular governmental interest involved.” 90 N.J. 604, 614 (1982). See In re Rachmiel, 90 N.J. 646, 655 (1982).
Nor may an individual, by virtue of being a public employee, be deprived of his or her constitutional right to freedom of expression and association. Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 142, 103 S.Ct. 1684, 1687, 75 L.Ed.2d 708, 716-17 (1983); Bran-*462ti v. Finkel, 445 U.S. 507, 100 S.Ct. 1287, 63 L.Ed.2d 574 (1980); Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972); Pickering v. Board of Educ., 391 U.S. 563, 88 S.Ct. 1731, 20 L.Ed.2d 811 (1968); Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U.S. 589, 87 S.Ct. 675, 17 L.Ed.2d 629 (1967). Long gone are the days when the Supreme Court held that government could condition public employment on the surrender of certain constitutional rights. See Adler v. Board of Educ., 342 U.S. 485, 72 S.Ct. 380, 96 L.Ed. 517 (1952); Garner v. Los Angeles Board of Pub. Works, 341 U.S. 716, 71 S.Ct. 909, 95 L.Ed. 1317 (1951); United Pub. Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U.S. 75, 67 S.Ct. 556, 91 L.Ed. 754 (1947); United States v. Wurzbach, 280 U.S. 396, 50 S.Ct. 167, 74 L.Ed. 508 (1930); “Developments in the Law — Public Employment,” 97 Harv.L.Rev. 1611, 1739 (1984).
The Supreme Court, however, recognizes that the state has a legitimate interest as an employer in regulating the speech and acts of its employees. Accordingly, in Pickering v. Board of Educ., 391 U.S. at 568, 88 S.Ct. at 1734, 20 L.Ed.2d at 817, it established a balancing test to determine whether in furthering that interest a public employer has violated its employees’ First-Amendment rights. The court must balance the “interests of the [employee], as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern and the interest of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees.” Id.1
II
In applying the Pickering framework, one first must analyze the interests of the employee, as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern. This requires consideration of the *463nature of the activity prohibited by the rule. “The more the subject matter of the employee’s expression implicates core first amendment values, the greater is the government’s burden in justifying its regulation.” Note, “Politics and the Non-Civil Service Public Employee: A Categorical Approach to First Amendment Protection,” 85 Col.L.Rev. 558, 571 (1985). It is undisputed that Norma Randolph’s rights to free speech and association are core First Amendment rights. Here “we are not quibbling over fine-tuning of prophylactic limitations but are concerned about the wholesale restriction of clearly protected conduct.” FEC v. National Conservative PAC, 470 U.S. -, -, 105 S.Ct. 1459, 1471, 84 L.Ed.2d 455, 472 (1985).
Randolph’s activities fall into two categories: (1) public appointee positions on various community boards and councils, and (2) offices in two non-profit private community organizations. Specifically, the public positions concern the Monmouth County Mental Health Board (of which Randolph is no longer a member), the Freehold Borough Board of Assessment, the Borough of Freedom Youth Guidance Council, and the Citizens Participation Group of Freehold Borough. Additionally, Randolph serves on the Executive Committee of the Greater Red Bank Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and is second vice-president of the United Progressive Homeowners and Taxpayers Association, Inc. (UPH).
The Court does not distinguish between Randolph’s activities in the public and private organizations, but prohibits her activities in all of the organizations for the same reason— namely, that these activities pose a realistic likelihood of involving the judicial employee in important and recurring public issues that are the frequent subject of political controversy, giving the impression of judicial involvement in those issues and creating the appearance of a judiciary lacking in impartiality and independence. The majority concludes that the speech and association of judicial employees may be restricted if there is a realistic likelihood of interference with or disruption of the *464administration of the courts’ services, and finds that Randolph’s activities constitute a realistic likelihood of such a disruptive effect upon the work of the judiciary.
It is important to understand what this case does not concern. It does not concern traditional political activity. Not one of the organizations works for or advises political candidates or is involved in partisan politics.2 Here the majority does not limit Randolph’s activities because the organizations actually engage in “political activity,” but rather prohibits her from serving in civic and community organizations that have a potential to be involved in public controversy. This sort of speculation amounts to an outright prohibition of services in any civic or community organization,3 since by definition such an orga*465nization deals with issues of public concern. In short, if all issues of public concern are classified as “political activity,” then no civic involvement is permitted.
And so, this interpretation effectively precludes any employee covered by Rule 1:17-1 from actively participating in any community or civic organization. Indeed, under a literal application of the majority’s test, a judicial employee, regardless of his or her position, could not serve as an officer in a religious organization, a parents-teachers association, or neighborhood environmental group. After all, there is a realistic likelihood that activities in any of those organizations will involve the judicial employee in important and recurring public issues that are the frequent subject of public controversy. Moreover, although the majority seemingly holds that Randolph may continue as a member of the NAACP and UPH, the reasons for prohibiting her from serving as an officer of the organization are equally applicable to preventing her from being an active member of the organization. Given her thirty years of exemplary community service, it is unlikely that, unrestrained, she would ever be a passive member of any organization to which she belongs.
The Court also fails to recognize that while Rule 1:17-1 imposes an absolute ban on an employee engaging in “political activity,” it does not impose an absolute ban on an employee serving in an appointive position; instead it vests this Court with discretion to grant or deny permission to an employee to hold any other public office, position or employment. The majority claims that “[rjealistically, such appointments come *466about through politics in the broader sense.” Ante at 445. Ergo, any judicial employee is automatically prohibited from serving on such a governmental board or commission. But this Court’s discretionary authority itself belies the majority’s position. There may be cases where regular consistent activities in traditional politics leading up to the appointment may result in this Court’s denying permission for a judicial employee to serve on a governmental board. The record in this case discloses no evidence of this type. There is no suggestion that Randolph ever engaged in any partisan political activities, let alone that such activities resulted in her appointments to the governmental boards. For all the Court’s avowals of “realism,” it overlooks the overriding reality to which the record points: that Randolph’s appointments to four governmental boards were not at all akin to the political plums of patronage that would compromise the integrity of the judicial system. Rather, the appointments are those positions usually given to concerned citizens of a community interested in helping all the citizens, but particularly the mentally ill, the young, and the disadvantaged.
The majority’s interpretation not only violates an employee's First Amendment rights of freedom of association and speech; it also is an unwarranted extension of the original meaning of the rule. The source rule from which Rule 1:17-1 has evolved is R.R. 1:25C, which had been adopted in 1961. When the present rule was adopted in 1969, the prohibition in the previous rule against “partisan political activity” was amended to prohibit “political activity.” The purpose of that change was explained by its drafters in the “Comments on Rule 1:17-1” as follows:
The introductory sentence of this rule substitutes the phrase “political activity” for "partisan political activity” in the source rule. The word “partisan” has been dropped since the Supreme Court has interpreted the present rule as barring those persons covered thereby from being active in non-partisan political elections.
Although I believe that the change was intended merely to clarify that the rule applied to all types of elections, whether *467partisan or nonpartisan, I recognize that under Rule 1:17-1 the term “political activity” may encompass more than traditional electoral political activity. In certain instances, depending on a court employee’s position in the judiciary, his or her leadership role in a community activity may be so controversial and so antithetical to the independence and integrity of the judiciary that the employee should be forbidden to continue that role or even participation in any capacity. However, such a conclusion should be reached only after a thorough and vigorous analysis of the employee’s activity, his or her position in the judiciary, and the impact of the challenged actions on the judiciary. Otherwise, we merely pay lip service to the Pickering analytical framework, too readily allowing the State’s admittedly real but unfocused interest in averting threats to the independence and impartiality of the judiciary to outweigh the citizen’s core First Amendment rights.
Ill
On the other side of the Pickering balance, one must analyze the interest of the State as an employer that is invoked to justify the restriction upon the citizen-employee’s rights of speech and association, along with the fit between this end and the means chosen to further it. Here I do not find that the prohibition of Randolph’s activities is necessary or essential to further any important or substantial governmental interest.
To be sure, the judiciary has an interest in maintaining its independence and impartiality. We have held that judges and others officially associated with the court system must be divorced from involvement in the political sphere, “as a necessary sacrifice for the sake of judicial integrity and the public appearance thereof.” In re Gaulkin, 69 N.J. 185, 189 (1976).
This separation is thought in this State * * * to be indispensable to public confidence in the courts and their probity, impartiality, disinterested objectivity and freedom from outside pressures in their dealing with causes coming before them. Such public confidence in judicial integrity is the foundation * * * of our *468courts’ power, influence and acceptance as necessary instruments in the effective administration of justice, [/d]
Nevertheless, our interest in preserving the integrity of the judicial system must be balanced against a public employee’s right to exercise his or her First Amendment rights. Any restriction imposed may not be greater than that which is necessary or essential to protect the governmental interest. Thus, in In re Gaulkin, we held that, subject to certain limitations, the prohibition against political activity on the part of a judge should not extend to his or her nonjudicial spouse. “Where a court is dealing with a First Amendment right (here the political involvement of the non-judicial spouse), fears that its exercise will have undesirable consequences cannot inhibit judicial vindication thereof.” Id. at 198.
I acknowledge that some restrictions upon the political activities of an employee may further an important governmental interest. However, there is no valid justification for an absolute prohibition upon the civic and community activities of court employees, particularly those who are as far removed from the judicial decision-making process as is Randolph. The impact on the independence of the judiciary by the activities of a judge who exercises discretionary powers is radically different from the impact by the activities of an employee who performs ministerial tasks. In applying the balancing test, the majority ignores this difference. One reading the opinion of the Court might infer that Randolph’s duties are similar to those of a judge.
But Randolph is not at all like a judge; she is a court aide, employed by the Sheriff’s Office of Monmouth County at a salary of $7,000.4 She wears a uniform that identifies her as *469courtroom personnel. Her duties include the following: swearing in witnesses, taking juries up and down stairs, preparing the courtroom with water pitchers and chairs, and occasionally announcing entrances and exits of the judge. She has never received a direct order from a judge. She takes her orders from a co-worker, a more experienced employee of the Sheriffs Department who is a court attendant. Significantly, on the basis of a factual hearing below, the court found that Randolph does not engage in any of the following duties:
(i) attend the judge on the bench or in chambers, answer the telephone, obtain law books, procure documents or records;
(ii) see that counsel, court clerk, court reporter or other necessary personnel are present before the judge leaves his chambers;
(iii) call trial lists, announce postponements or adjournments; or
(iv) supply information personally or by telephone to attorneys, prosecutor, sheriff, or other county officials as to trial, motion, dismissal lists, adjournments, current status or disposition of cases.
A review of Randolph’s duties indicates that, unlike a judge’s secretary or law clerk, she has neither close contact nor a close personal relationship with the judge. Court aides are not considered personal aides to judges, and judges are discouraged from treating court aides as such. They are uniformed personnel assigned by the sheriff to various courtrooms, not to a particular judge. They perform important, necessary ministerial functions, but they are not involved in the decision-making process of the court.
This analysis of the position of judicial employees is not meant to demean or denigrate the job of any judicial employee, *470but rather to point out that certain positions are more central and sensitive to the decision-making process of the judiciary than others. The functions of Randolph and the functions of a judge with respect to their impact on the independence and impartiality of the judiciary and the public’s perception of their impact are totally different.
While those in a position to affect decision-making or to influence the public’s confidence in the judiciary must maintain their independence and impartiality, restraints upon the civic and community activities of court employees who are so far removed from the judicial decision-making process as Norma Randolph are not warranted. Prohibiting Randolph from serving in either the public or private organizations with which she is affiliated goes far beyond protecting the integrity of the judiciary. The majority has unrealistically imposed on Randolph requirements that should be reserved for judges and other people who are in a position to influence judges or the administration of justice. I simply do not believe the public perceives that court aides who are assigned randomly to courtrooms to perform administrative tasks influence the legal decisions of the judges who sit within them.
Certainly, it is less troublesome for the Court to issue as it does today an absolute prohibition on its employees and other judiciary support personnel from actively participating in any organization that is concerned with public issues. However, the First Amendment does not permit such a blanket prohibition. Any restrictions must be based upon realistic appraisals of substantial harm to the government. Such appraisals have not been made here. The majority’s opinion makes only vague references to the harm that will be done to the judiciary by Randolph’s participation in these activities:
We do not believe that we must prove beyond debate that this detachment is necessarily lost, or that litigants will start to think that a judge will be partial to a particular group or philosophy because of association with politically-active court personnel. More is at stake here than proof of prejudice. We think that there is a much more subtle value involved, and do not think the Constitution prevents us from promoting such values, even if they are difficult to describe or *471prove, so long as they represent something very important. There is a tone, a feeling, an atmosphere, of impartiality that should surround everything that has to do with the judiciary. That subtle value is destroyed or damaged each time that someone connected with the courts does something that judges should not do even though they are not judges. [Ante at 452-53.]
The majority does not apply the Pickering balancing test in a reasonable, common-sense manner. In actuality, the interest of the judiciary here is slight when weighed against Mrs. Randolph’s protected forms of expression.
Although the majority claims to eschew an absolutist approach (either on the side of protecting expression and association or restricting it) for a balancing approach, it invokes Chief Justice Weintraub for the proposition that “[t]he prohibition on political activity is absolute,” ante at 441, and that “[t]he relevant factor is ... she has been assigned by the Sheriff to the courtroom.”5 Ante at 452. Furthermore, the majority *472claims to have distilled from various decisions and principles “a flexible rule that is tailored to the relationship or proximity of the employee to the decision-making and to the nature and extent of the political activities sought to be engaged in by the employee.” Ante at 441. With all due respect, I submit that the Court inflexibly applies an absolute rule, failing to tailor it to the first of these two enunciated factors. A court attendant like Randolph, conceding her association with organizations concerned with public issues that are likely to be the subject of judicial resolution, nonetheless is not close enough or so related to a judge as to give the appearance of a judiciary lacking in impartiality on these issues. The “appearance of impropriety,” while real and subtle, threatens to become an insubstantial and fanciful specter in the majority’s analysis. And so, the majority, in being “uniquely] committed” to the actual and apparent independence of court employees, is less protective of their constitutional rights to expression and association than is the balancing framework of Pickering and Connick. It lays aside our State’s proud tradition of “exceptional vitality in the New Jersey Constitution” with respect to these constitutional rights, indeed of being more protective of such rights than is the United States Constitution. State v. Schmid, 84 N.J. 535, 557 (1980). The Court’s bright-line approach obscures its encroachment upon constitutional rights to freedom of expression and association.
IY
Furthermore, the majority did not consider the least intrusive means to achieve the intent of Rule 1:17-1. Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U.S. 479, 488, 81 S.Ct. 247, 252, 5 L.Ed.2d 231, 237 (1960). “Because First Amendment freedoms need breathing space to survive, government may regulate in the area only with narrow *473specificity.” NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 433, 83 S.Ct. 328, 338, 9 L.Ed.2d 405, 418 (1963).
[A] State' may not choose means that unnecessarily restrict constitutionally protected liberty. “Precision of regulation must be the touchstone in an area so closely touching our most precious freedoms.” If the State has open to it a less drastic way of satisfying its legitimate interests, it may not choose a legislative scheme that broadly stifles the exercise of fundamental personal liberties. [Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 363, 96 S.Ct. 2673, 2684, 49 L.Ed.2d 547, 559 (1976) (citations omitted).]
The restrictions imposed on the clerks of the federal courts, who have a closer relationship with the judges of those courts than does Randolph with state court judges, offer a telling contrast. Canons 5B and 7B of the Code of Conduct for United States Clerks provide as follows:
Canon 5B. Civil and Charitable Activities. A clerk may participate in civic and charitable activities that do not detract from the dignity of his office or interfere with the performance of his official duties. A clerk may serve as an officer, director, trustee or advisor of a civic or charitable organization and solicit funds for any such organization, subject to the following limitations:
(1) He should not use or permit the use of the prestige of his office in the solicitation of funds.
(2) He should not solicit his subordinates to contribute to or participate in any civic or charitable activity, but he may call his subordinates’ attention to a general fund-raising campaign such as the Combined Federal Campaign or the United Way.
(3) He should not solicit funds from lawyers or persons likely to come before him or the court which he serves.
Canon 7B. Nonpartisan Political Activity. A clerk may engage in nonpartisan political activity that.does not tend to reflect adversely on the dignity of the court or his office, or interfere with the proper performance of his official duties.
[Vol. I-C Guide to Judiciary Policies and Procedures, Ch. X Personnel Regulations, Part J Code of Conduct for United States Clerks (March 14, 1979).6]
A reading of these federal guidelines suggests that the Court could resort to other less restrictive measures to effectuate the primary aim of protecting the integrity and independence of the judicial system.
*474Rather than resort to the imposition of a blanket ban against community and civic involvement, another less drastic means would be for the Court to adopt in fact as well as in name the Pickering approach, directing that actual or perceived conflicts be resolved as they arise. For example, while it is possible, although highly unlikely, that any one of these organizations may become involved in litigation and be assigned to the same court to which Norma Randolph is also assigned, it would be a simple administrative matter to have her temporarily reassigned to a different courtroom. If a serious conflict arose, the Court could at that time balance the purposes and policies to be served by a proscription against Randolph’s continued involvement in the organization. Measures like these would be adequate to protect the public’s confidence in the judiciary, while preserving Randolph’s fundamental First Amendment rights.
V
“It goes without saying that our system of government is predicated upon the premise that every citizen shall have the right to engage in political activity. It is a basic freedom enshrined in the First Amendment.” In re Gaulkin, 69 N.J. at 191. This important right must be relinquished by our judges upon ascendancy to the bench. Id. However, no justification exists for adherence to a prophylactic policy so fixed as to preclude Norma Randolph, an outstanding citizen devoted to serving her community, from exercising her right to participate in her community’s activities as she has done in the past. Certainly, a mere allegation that an organization committed to benefiting the community may have a potential for public controversy is not a sufficient basis on which to curtail Randolph’s First Amendment rights. Under the Pickering balancing test, the judiciary’s interest in Randolph’s right to engage in activities that do not constitute traditional electoral political activity is minimal. In contrast, Randolph’s rights are fundamental and compel this Court’s vigilant protec*475tion. The judiciary’s interest is adequately protected by judging the restrictions on civic participation according to an employee’s duties in the court system.
POLLOCK, J., concurring in the result.
For affirmance — Chief Justice WILENTZ and Justices CLIFFORD, SCHREIBER, POLLOCK and O’HERN — 5.
For reversal — Justices HANDLER and GARIBALDI — 2.

 The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 103 S.Ct. 1684, 75 L.Ed.2d 708 (1983), limited the scope of public employees' expressional rights to those that address a public concern. Here, the majority agrees that the rights asserted by Norma Randolph are of public concern. Hence, the limitation imposed on the Pickering doctrine by Connick is not applicable here.

Two leading cases in which the Supreme Court has addressed the constitutionality of statutes restricting the political activity of public employees are Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601, 93 S.Ct. 2908, 37 L.Ed.2d 830, and United States Civil Serv. Comm. v. National Ass’n of Letter Carriers, 413 U.S. 548, 93 S.Ct. 2880, 37 L.Ed.2d 796 (1973). Although the Court upheld the challenged statute in each instance, it is clear from these decisions that the government’s ability to restrict the political activities of its employees is extremely limited. As noted by the Third Circuit:
We think * * * that Broadrick and Letter Carriers, properly viewed, carve out carefully circumscribed exceptions to the sweeping injunction of the First Amendment, exceptions allowing a legislature — Congress or state lawmakers — to inhibit only "partisan political activity" and not all political "discussion.”
[Alderman v. Philadelphia Housing Auth., 496 F.2d 164, 172 (3d Cir.1974) (emphasis in original).]
While the present case does not concern a public employee's right to participate in either partisan or nonpartisan elections, these precedents demonstrate how narrowly the Supreme Court construes the government's ability to prohibit its employees from engaging in traditional "political activity.”

Such speculation also results in an uneven application of the Rule 1:17-1. In the past, employees of the Administrative Office of the Courts and supporting judicial personnel have been permitted to serve on the New Jersey Advisory Commission for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights; on the board of directors for the New Jersey Association for Retarded Citizens; as second vice-president for the Tenby Chase Civic Association, a local homeowners *465organization; on the executive committee of the Educational Rights Association; as a trustee of the Bergen Community Regional Blood Center; as a member of the Citizens’ Advisory Commission at Mercer County Community College; and as a trustee of Rutgers University. Permission was denied to serve on the board of directors of the Trenton Chapter of the Urban League; as chairman of the board of trustees of Gloucester County College; on the board of directors of the Jewish Hospital and Rehabilitation Center; and as alternate member of the Elizabeth Fair Rental Housing Board.

Randolph also argues that as an employee of the Sheriffs Department, she falls within the category of persons exempted from Rule 1:17-1 under Rule 1:17-2, which provides:
Rule 1:17-1 shall not apply to county clerks, county prosecutors, sheriffs nor to employees of their respective offices except as such employees are *469specifically referred to therein and except as otherwise provided by N J.S. 2A:158-21 (proscribed political activity of county prosecutors and their staffs), [emphasis added.]
Randolph argues that if we held in Clark v. DeFino, 80 N.J. 539 (1979), that Rule 1:17 — 1(a) and (b) were insufficient to overcome the exemption as to surrogates, it should follow that the general language of Rule 1:17 — 1(f) is insufficient to overcome the exemption as to sheriff’s employees. Thus, Rule 1:17-1 is inapplicable. I disagree with this contention and find that if a court aide has sufficient contact with the court system, he or she may be bound by Rule 1:17-1.

The Court takes issue with my suggestion that it adopts an absolutist approach instead of applying the Pickering balancing framework, apparently qualifying its otherwise practically absolutist approach with the concession that "[i]f there is a role as officer in the private organizations that petitioner can fulfill, not as advocate, leader, or spokesperson in the public forum, we will sympathetically evaluate the request." Ante at 454. This is no concession at all, for it does not necessarily manifest a balancing approach. Any "absolutist" approach will admit of exceptions, if only in the sense of requiring judgments in defining the range of absoluteness — here, for example, in determining the boundary between "private organization” and "public forum.” And, given the majority’s analysis throughout the rest of the opinion, it is hard to imagine what role as officer in such "private" civic and community organizations would survive its supposedly sympathetic evaluation — unless, ironically, that role were to discharge the very sort of duties Randolph performs as court officer.
A final point should be noted. Pace the Court’s suggestion, this case “comes to us as a direct challenge to the application of our rule to a court attendant with the defined outside activities.” Ante at 454. On June 16, 1983, this Court ordered that the petition for review in this case be granted and that the matter be temporarily remanded to the Assignment Judge of Monmouth County to designate a judge to conduct a hearing and ordered that the judge make recommended findings of fact on the nature of the organizations involved, the activities and relationship of Norma Randolph with those organizations and the duties and activities of Norma Randolph as a court aide. The hearing was held on October 21, 1983 before a judge of the Superior Court of Monmouth *472County, who made the recommended findings of fact, which along with facts added by petitioner form the record in this case.

 On April 28, 1983, Canon 5B was amended as follows: "a civic or charitable organization” was changed to "an educational, religious, charitable, fraternal, or civic organization.” On May 19, 1983, the Code was amended in other respects.