Court Opinion

ID: 9541629
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:27:15.914885+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:04:14.060882
License: Public Domain

KENNARD, J.—
I dissent.
The majority holds that the state Constitution’s separation of powers clause permits officers of the legislative and executive branches to appoint and reappoint judges of the State Bar Court and to alter that court’s composition by eliminating public (that is, nonattomey) representation. I disagree. Because the State Bar Court operates as an arm of this court in hearing attorney discipline matters, and because this court has primary authority over attorney discipline, judges of the State Bar Court are subordinate judicial officers that must be answerable only to this court. Because the law at issue makes State Bar Court judges subservient to members of the political branches, and because it alters the composition of the State Bar Court in a way likely to reduce public confidence in the attorney discipline system, the law is invalid under the separation of powers clause of the California Constitution.
I
Article VI of the California Constitution vests the judicial power of this state “in the Supreme Court, courts of appeal, superior courts, and municipal courts, all of which are courts of record.” (Cal. Const., art. VI, § 1.) “In *64California, the power to regulate the practice of law, including the power to admit and to discipline attorneys, has long been recognized to be among the inherent powers of the article VI courts. Indeed every state in the United States recognizes that the power to admit and to discipline attorneys rests in the judiciary.” (Hustedt v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd. (1981) 30 Cal.3d 329, 336-337 [178 Cal.Rptr. 801, 636 P.2d 1139], fn. omitted.) In exercising its power over attorney discipline, this court has long relied on the State Bar, a public corporation constitutionally recognized as integral to the operations of the judicial branch. (In re Rose (2000) 22 Cal.4th 430, 438 [93 Cal.Rptr. 298, 993 P.2d 956].)
Before 1988, the State Bar’s disciplinary system was staffed by volunteer attorneys serving as referees, who conducted hearings and made recommendations to the bar’s board of governors, which in turn made recommendations to this court for the disciplining of attorneys. (In re Rose, supra, 22 Cal.4th 430, 438.) Since 1988, the State Bar Court has assumed this role. (Ibid.) Because it assists in the discharge of this court’s duty to discipline attorneys, the State Bar Court operates as an administrative arm of this court. (Id. at p. 439.) The State Bar Court is staffed by salaried judges who, until now, have all been appointed by this court. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 961(c).) They are subject to removal by this court only on grounds that would justify removal of a judge of this state. (Id., rule 961(d).)
The State Bar Court is divided into the Hearing Department and the Review Department. The Hearing Department is the trial department of the State Bar Court (Rules Proc. of State Bar, rule 2, definition 2.60); in attorney discipline proceedings, the trial is an evidentiary hearing on the merits conducted before a hearing judge (id., rule 2, definition 3.16). At the conclusion of the hearing, the hearing judge renders a written decision recommending the discipline, if any, to be imposed. (Id., rule 220.) The Review Department is the appellate department of the State Bar Court (id., rule 2, definition 3.02), in which the rulings and orders of a hearing judge are reviewed (id., rule 300 et seq.). After it becomes final, a State Bar Court decision recommending that an attorney be suspended or disbarred is transmitted to this court. (Id., rule 250.) The State Bar Court’s discipline recommendations are advisory and may be implemented only by order of this court after independent review on the merits. (In re Rose, supra, 22 Cal.4th 430, 441-448.)
The State Bar Court is now staffed by five hearing judges and three judges of the Review Department, all of whom serve six-year terms. (Bus. & Prof. Code, §§ 6079.1, 6086.65; see maj. opn., ante, at p. 45.) One of the judges of the Review Department is a “lay judge,” meaning a person who is not and has never been licensed to practice law. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 45, fn. 4.)
*65By Senate Bill No. 143 (1999-2000 Reg. Sess.), the Legislature has recently amended Business and Professions Code section 6079.1 to provide for appointment of three of the five hearing judges by persons other than this court. This law, the validity of which is here challenged, grants the Governor, the Senate Committee on Rules (chaired by the Senate President Pro Tempore), and the Speaker of the Assembly authority to each appoint one hearing judge. The same bill also amended Business and Professions Code section 6086.65 to replace the lay judge in the Review Department with a judge who is a member of the State Bar.
II
The California Constitution expressly provides for the separation of governmental powers among the three branches of state government: “The powers of state government are legislative, executive, and judicial. Persons charged with the exercise of one power may not exercise either of the others except as permitted by this Constitution.” (Cal. Const., art. Ill, § 3.) Although this particular provision dates only from 1972, our state Constitution “[fjrom its inception . . . has contained an explicit provision embodying the separation of powers doctrine.” (Superior Court v. County of Mendocino (1996) 13 Cal.4th 45, 52 [51 Cal.Rptr.2d 837, 913 P.2d 1046].)
The doctrine of separation of powers long predates our state Constitution; its origins “can be traced to the fourth century B.C. when Aristotle, in his treatise entitled Politics, described three agencies of government: the general assembly, the public officials, and the judiciary.” (Ervin, Separation of Powers: Judicial Independence (1970) 35 Law & Contemp. Probs. 108, fn. omitted.) The “leading Framers” of the federal Constitution “viewed the principle of separation of powers as the central guarantee of a just government.” (Freytag v. Commissioner (1991) 501 U.S. 868, 870 [111 S.Ct. 2631, 2364, 115 L.Ed.2d 764].) Referring to the separation of powers doctrine, James Madison said: “No political truth is certainly of greater intrinsic value, or is stamped with the authority of more enlightened patrons of liberty . . . .” (Madison, The Federalist No. 47 (Rossiter edit. 1961) p. 301.)
The purpose of separation of powers is to protect individual liberty by preventing concentration of powers in the hands of any one individual or body. (Buckley v. Valeo (1976) 424 U.S. 1, 122 [96 S.Ct. 612, 683-684, 46 L.Ed.2d 659].) Among the three great departments or branches into which the state and the federal governments are divided—the legislative, executive, and judicial branches—the framers of the federal Constitution were most apprehensive about the legislative branch. (Buckley v. Valeo, supra, at p. 129 [96 S.Ct. at p. 687] [“the debates of the Constitutional Convention, and the *66Federalist Papers, are replete with expressions of fear that the Legislative Branch of the National Government will aggrandize itself at the expense of the other two branches”].) At the Philadelphia convention, James Madison explained it this way: “ ‘[Experience in all states has evinced a powerful tendency in the legislature to absorb all power into its vortex. This was the real source of danger to the American [state] Constitutions; and suggested the necessity of giving every defensive authority to the other departments that was consistent with republican principles.’ ” (Ervin, Separation of Powers: Judicial Independence, supra, 35 Law & Contemp. Probs. 108, 113.)
Because the manipulation of official appointments “was deemed ‘the most insidious and powerful weapon of eighteenth century despotism’ ” (Freytag v. Commissioner, supra, 501 U.S. 868, 883 [111 S.Ct. 2631, 2641]), the framers of the federal Constitution very carefully and deliberately embedded the separation of powers concept in that Constitution’s appointments clause (Freytag v. Commissioner, supra, at p. 882 [111 S.Ct. at pp. 2640-2641]). Under that clause (U.S. Const., art. II, § 2, cl. 2), Congress retains authority “to appoint its own officers to perform functions necessary to that body as an institution.” (Buckley v. Valeo, supra, 424 U.S. 1, 127 [96 S.Ct. 612, 686].) But Congress is denied authority to appoint any officers of the judicial or executive branches. (Id. at p. 129 [96 S.Ct. at p. 687].) For higher ranking officers, such as cabinet-level department heads, ambassadors, and justices of the United States Supreme Court, the appointments clause provides that the President is to nominate and appoint the officer, “by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.” For all other judicial and executive branch officers, Congress has discretion to select the appointing authority, but its choice is confined to only three possible designees, a limitation that “reflects our Framers’ conclusion that widely distributed appointment power subverts democratic government.” (Freytag v. Commissioner, supra, at p. 885 [111 S.Ct. at p. 2642].) Congress may vest authority to appoint officers of lesser rank “in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.” (U.S. Const., art. II, § 2, cl. 2.) Thus, Congress is not permitted to designate itself or any of its officers as the appointing authority for lower ranking officers of the executive and judicial branches of government. (Buckley v. Valeo, supra, at p. 129 [96 S.Ct. at p. 687].) Nor may Congress retain for itself a power, apart from impeachment, to remove an officer who exercises executive or judicial authority. (Bowsher v. Synar (1986) 478 U.S. 714, 732 [106 S.Ct. 3181, 3190-3191, 92 L.Ed.2d 583].)
The decision to deny Congress authority to control the appointment or removal of lower ranking executive and judicial officers was deliberate. As James Madison said in the First Congress: “ ‘The Legislature creates the office, defines the powers, limits its duration and annexes a compensation. *67This done, the Legislative power ceases. They ought to have nothing to do with designating the man to fill the office.’ ” (Myers v. United States (1926) 272 U.S. 52, 128 [47 S.Ct. 21, 29, 71 L.Ed. 160], quoting 1 Annals of Cong. (1789) 581, 582.)
When construing the appointments clause of the federal Constitution, the United States Supreme Court has recognized that it is “usual and proper to vest the appointment of inferior officers in that department of the government, executive or judicial, or in that particular executive department to which the duties of such officers appertain.” (Ex parte Siebold (1880) 100 U.S. (10 Otto) 371, 397 [25 L.Ed. 717, 726].) Although interbranch appointments are not invariably proscribed, Congress’s power to provide for such appointments is limited by “separation-of-powers concerns, which would arise if such provision for appointment had the potential to impair the constitutional functions assigned to one of the branches,” and a provision for interbranch appointment likely would be improper if there were an “incongruity” between the functions normally performed by the appointing power and tiie exercise of the appointment authority. (Morrison v. Olson (1988) 487 U.S. 654, 675-676 [108 S.Ct. 2597, 2611, 101 L.Ed.2d 569]; see also Springer v. Philippine Islands (1928) 277 U.S. 189 [48 S.Ct. 480, 72 L.Ed. 845] [legislature of the Philippine Islands could not provide for legislative appointments to executive agencies].)
Although federal judges serving in courts established under article III of the federal Constitution are themselves the products of interbranch appointments (being appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate), their terms of office are limited only by “good behavior,” and Congress may not reduce their salaries during their terms of office. (U.S. Const., art. Ill, § 1.) In this way, the Framers ensured that after appointment federal judges would be free from influence by their appointing authority: “The separation of powers concept as understood by the founding fathers assumed the existence of a judicial system free from outside influence of whatever kind and from whatever source . . . .” (Ervin, Separation of Powers: Judicial Independence, supra, 35 Law & Contemp. Probs. 108, 121.)
The California Constitution has no equivalent of the federal Constitution’s appointments clause. But the federal experience is instructive in construing the separation of powers guarantee of the state Constitution. It is worth noting that, consistent with the federal Constitution’s limitations on Congress’s role in the appointment and removal of executive and judicial branch officers, the California Constitution gives the Legislature no role at all in the appointment of judges. Judges are elected by the voters, with the Governor having authority to fill vacancies by appointment. (Cal. Const., art. VI, §16.)
*68Although the precise issue presented here has never arisen before in California, courts in other states have held that the legislative branch lacks authority to appoint or remove subordinate judicial officers and confidential judicial assistants. In State v. Noble (1889) 118 Ind. 350 [21 N.E. 244], for example, the Indiana Supreme Court struck down a statute granting the state legislature authority to appoint commissioners to assist the court in the performance of its duties, and granting the governor authority to appoint commissioners to fill vacancies. Explaining why these interbranch appointments violated the doctrine of separation of powers, the court said: “A department without the power to select those to whom it must entrust part of its essential duties can not be independent. . . . flQ If it be conceded that the right to make choice of ministers and assistants for the court is a legislative power, then neither the judiciary nor the executive can limit its exercise, nor impose restraints upon the legislative discretion. ... If this be so, then the Legislature may select any number of assistants, assign to them whatsoever duties they may see fit, give them access to the records of the court and surrender to them the right to share with it all labors and all duties. Surely, a court thus subject to legislative rule would be a mere dependent, without a right to control its own business and records. But a constitutional court is not subject to any such legislative control. The Legislature can not for any purpose cross the line which separates the departments and secures the independence of the judiciary. It is not the length of the step inside the sphere of the judiciary that summons the courts to assert their constitutional right and demands of them the performance of their sworn duty, for the slightest encroachment is a wrong to be at once condemned and resisted.” (Id. at p. 357 [21 N.E. at p. 247], italics added.)
Summing up, the Indiana Supreme Court said: “[I]t can not be doubted that judicial power includes the authority to select persons whose services may be required injudicial proceedings, or who may be required to act as the assistants of the judges in the performance of their judicial functions, whether they be referees, receivers, attorneys, masters, or commissioners. HD ... It was, as we have shown, a well known and fully recognized principle, that courts should, as part of the judicial power, have the right to choose their own assistants, and the Constitution has secured and confirmed that principle beyond the power of the Legislature to shake it.” (State v. Noble, supra, 118 Ind. 350, 360-361 [21 N.E. 244, 248], italics added.) This court quoted these very words with apparent approval in People v. Hayne (1890) 83 Cal. 111 [23 P. 1], upholding legislation reserving to this court the authority to appoint Supreme Court commissioners. Other state courts have similarly concluded that, just as the judiciary ordinarily may not appoint persons discharging executive or legislative duties (Hutchins v. City of Des Moines (1916) 176 Iowa 189, 212 [157 N.W. 881, 889], the legislative and executive *69branches may not appoint or remove subordinate judicial officers or confidential judicial assistants (Borland v. Eau Claire County (1998) 216 Wis.2d 559, 589 [575 N.W.2d 691, 703]; Witter v. Cook County Com’rs (1912) 256 111. 616 [100 N.E. 148].)
Ill
Because they raise serious separation of powers concerns, interbranch appointments must be carefully scrutinized and should be permitted only if there exists either a special justification for the interbranch appointing mechanism or particular safeguards to protect the appointee from extra-branch influence after appointment. Because here the proponents of the challenged law have shown neither a special justification nor particular safeguards, the challenged law is invalid.
An interbranch appointment would be justified if, for example, vesting the appointing power within the same branch in which the officer serves would implicate a conflict of interest. (See, e.g., Morrison v. Olson, supra, 487 U.S. 654, 677 [108 S.Ct. 2597, 2611-2612] [upholding law providing for judicial appointment of special prosecutor].) Consistent with this principle, die state Constitution provides for interbranch appointment of the members of the Commission on Judicial Performance, the body charged with disciplining judges. (Cal. Const., art. VI, § 8, subd. (a).) Of the commission’s 11 members, this court appoints three, the Governor appoints four, and the legislative branch (by the Senate Committee on Rules and by the Speaker of the Assembly) appoints the other four. (Ibid.) But there is no comparable conflict of interest concern in the appointment of those charged with administering the attorney discipline system. Because judges are not members of the State Bar, this court’s appointment of State Bar Court hearing judges poses no issue of bias or conflict of interest.
An interbranch appointment might also be justified if the appointee’s duties were not purely executive or judicial or legislative, but of a combined or hybrid sort. Again, nothing like that has been demonstrated here. The duties of hearing judges involve supervising discovery, presiding at evidentiary hearings, and making written findings and recommendations. As the United States Supreme Court has explained, these duties “are quintessentially judicial in nature.” (Freytag v. Commissioner, supra, 501 U.S. 868, 891 [111 S.Ct. 2631, 2645].)
Not only is there no special justification for interbranch appointment of State Bar Court hearing judges, the law at issue contains no safeguards to ensure that hearing judges appointed by the executive or legislative branches will be independent of their appointing authorities. During their terms of *70office, hearing judges are removable only for cause in the same manner as other state judges presiding in courts established under article VI of the state Constitution. But hearing judges serve six-year terms, subject to reappointment for additional terms by the same appointing authority. Under these circumstances, hearing judges are necessarily subservient to their appointing authorities, which hold the power to determine whether they will continue in office. The Speaker of the Assembly, for example, could decline to reappoint, or threaten to decline to reappoint, a hearing judge who failed a political litmus test or who exercised judicial powers in a fashion unsatisfactory to the Speaker. (See Bowsher v. Synar, supra, 478 U.S. 714, 726 [106 S.Ct. 3181, 3187-3188].) This kind of political influence over the performance of judicial duties is constitutionally impermissible. Because hearing judges are subordinate judicial officers, they must owe their allegiance entirely to the judicial branch or to the voters, not to officers of the political branches of state government.
The majority suggests that appointment of hearing judges by members of the executive and legislative branches is permissible because hearing judges “operate only within a discrete arena ... in which a significant degree of legislative regulation has been found permissible.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 54.) I disagree. The Legislature acts within its proper sphere when it enacts legislation. The legislation may regulate the practice of law or the practice of medicine, or it may define crimes and prescribe punishments. Enacting laws of this character is quintessentially legislative in character. Within limits, the Legislature may also enact laws regulating judicial procedures. But when the Legislature has enacted the substantive law, and prescribed the procedure for its enforcement, it has ordinarily exhausted its legislative role. It may not also control the execution of the laws it has enacted or sit in judgment on persons accused of violating those laws. All judges, and indeed all executive officers, operate within arenas subject to a significant degree of legislative regulation through enactment of substantive and procedural laws. This legislative regulation provides no justification for legislative intrusion into the appointment of particular judicial officers.
The majority also suggests that interbranch appointment of hearing judges is permissible because hearing judges’ decisions are subject to review in the Review Department, all of whose judges are appointed by this court. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 54.) But it is no justification that the legislative and executive usurpation of the appointment process for the State Bar Court is not yet complete. To repeat the words of the Indiana Supreme Court, “[i]t is not the length of the step inside the sphere of the judiciary that summons the courts to assert their constitutional right, and demands of them the performance of their sworn duty, for the slightest encroachment is a wrong to be at *71once condemned and resisted.” (State v. Noble, supra, 21 N.E. 244, 247, italics added.)
Finally, the majority suggests that interbranch appointment of hearing judges by the political and executive branches is permissible because any appointees must first be found qualified by an independent entity whose members are appointed by the judiciary. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 54.) But this kind of screening merely ensures that the appointee will possess minimum qualifications essential for the position. It does not reduce or eliminate the appointed officer’s subservience to the appointing authority; reappointment will depend on pleasing the appointing authority, not the screening commission.
I conclude, accordingly, that appointment of hearing judges of the State Bar Court by the Senate Committee on Rules, the Speaker of the Assembly, and the Governor violates the separation of power provision of our state Constitution.
IV
The challenged provision deleting the position of lay judge in the Review Department also violates the principle of separation of powers. Ordinarily, the legislative branch may establish offices in the other branches and determine the minimum qualifications for those offices. But attorney discipline is a subject committed entirely to the judicial branch. Attorneys are officers of the court, and, as the United States Supreme Court has said, “it rests exclusively with the court to determine who is qualified to become one of its officers, as an attorney and counsellor, and for what cause he ought to be removed.” (Ex parte Secombe (1856) 60 U.S. (19 How.) 9, 13 [15 L.Ed. 565].) The majority correctly recognizes that in attorney discipline matters our authority is primary and extends to the composition of the State Bar Court. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 57.) Accordingly, statutes enacted by the Legislature dealing with the composition of the State Bar Court are properly considered recommendations that this court may accept or reject. In this instance, because there is no sound basis for eliminating the lay judge position in the Review Department, the recommendation should be firmly rejected.
In 1989, the American Bar Association created the Commission on Evaluation of Disciplinary Enforcement “to conduct a nationwide evaluation of lawyer disciplinary enforcement and to provide a model for responsible *72regulation of the legal profession into the twenty-first century.” (ABA, Lawyer Regulation for a New Century (1992) p. xi.) The commission continued the work of an American Bar Association committee formed in 1967 and chaired by retired United States Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark, a committee whose work this court has cited with approval. (See Hustedt v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd., supra, 30 Cal.3d 329, 341.) In 1992, the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association adopted the commission’s report. (ABA, Lawyer Regulation for a New Century, supra, at p. xi.) Regarding participation by nonattomeys in lawyer discipline, the commission recommended that “[a]t least one third ... of all adjudicators should be nonlawyers.” (Id. at p. 63.) The commission explained: “Over two thirds of the states have nonlawyer members sitting with lawyers to adjudicate disciplinary cases. The opinion of disciplinary counsel, lawyer members, and the courts of those states is that nonlawyers are a great benefit to the process. The presence of nonlawyers serves to assure the public that the disciplinary process is not a ‘whitewash.’ Nonlawyers bring a perspective that adds depth and breadth to the adjudication. [1D The appointment of nonlawyers as disciplinary adjudicators has been the policy of the American Bar Association for twenty years. . . . The lack of nonlawyer adjudicators creates distrust among the public and provides a target for critics of judicial regulation of lawyers. . . . [ID • • • [10 Failing to include nonlawyer members increases suspicion that the profession is protecting its own. It denies the Court, the public, and the profession depth and quality in the adjudicative process.” (Id. at pp. 63-64.)1
In 1993, the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates adopted Model Rules for Lawyer Disciplinary Enforcement. The model rules provide for a statewide board and hearing committees to administer the attorney discipline system. (ABA, Model Rules for Lawyer Disciplinary Enforcement (1996) rule 2(A).) Public members constitute one-third of the board, which corresponds to the State Bar Court’s Review Department. (Id., rule 2(B).) The commentary to the Model Rules explains: “A combination of lawyers and nonlawyers on the board results in a more balanced evaluation of complaints. Currently more than two-thirds of all jurisdictions involve public members in their disciplinary structure. Participation by nonlawyers increases the credibility of the discipline and disability process in the eyes of *73the public. There is a human tendency to suspect the objectivity of a discipline body composed solely of members of the respondent’s professional colleagues. Involving public members helps allay that suspicion.” {Id., com. to rule 2.)2
I find that reasoning persuasive. Public confidence is essential for the proper functioning of the attorney discipline system. One way to instill public confidence is to provide for nonattomey representation in the Review Department through the position of lay judge. A substantial majority of other jurisdictions use nonattomey adjudicators in their attorney discipline systems. In state boards regulating other professions, public members are invariably included, constituting at least one-third of the membership.3 Here, the majority suggests no reason why we should defer to the political branches by eliminating the only nonattomey adjudicator in the State Bar Court. Therefore, I find the challenged law invalid insofar as it eliminates the position of lay review judge.
V
We consider here a law that intrudes on this court’s authority over attorney discipline by restructuring the State Bar Court to remove our authority to appoint three of the five hearing judges and by eliminating the position of lay review judge. The majority concludes that this law does not defeat or materially impair judicial authority (maj. opn., ante, at p. 57), and *74that under this vague standard the law does not violate the separation of powers doctrine. In so concluding, the majority “underestimates the incremental effect of interbranch intrusions.” (McCabe, Four Faces of State Constitutional Separation of Powers: Challenges to Speedy Trial and Speedy Disposition Provisions (1989) 62 Temple L.Rev. 177, 218.) As the United States Supreme Court has explained, “the doctrine of separation of powers is a structural safeguard rather than a remedy to be applied only when specific harm, or risk of harm, can be identified.” (Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, Inc. (1995) 514 U.S. 211, 239 [115 S.Ct. 1447, 1463, 131 L.Ed.2d 328].) It is a doctrine “establishing high walls and clear distinctions because low walls and vague distinctions will not be judicially defensible in the heat of interbranch conflict.” (Ibid.; see also Bowsher v. Synar, supra, 478 U.S. 714, 730 [106 S.Ct. 3181, 3190] [“The Framers recognized that, in the long term, structural protections against abuse of power were critical to preserving liberty.”].)
Although the law here challenged poses no immediate threat to liberty, it is an impermissible weakening of structural protections, and therefore a violation of the separation of powers doctrine. Justice Kennedy put it this way: “It remains one of the most vital functions of this Court to police with care the separation of the governing powers. That is so even when, as in the case here, no immediate threat to liberty is apparent. When structure fails, liberty is always in peril.” (Public Citizen v. Department of Justice (1989) 491 U.S. 440, 468 [109 S.Ct. 2558, 2574, 105 L.Ed.2d 377] (cone. opn. of Kennedy, J.).)
For these reasons, I dissent.
Werdegar, J., concurred.

The commission also recommended that “[Regulation of the legal profession should remain under the authority of the judicial branch of government” (ABA, Lawyer Regulation for a New Century, supra, at p. 1) and that “[a]ll jurisdictions should structure their lawyer disciplinary systems so that disciplinary officials are appointed by the highest court of the jurisdiction or by other disciplinary officials who are appointed by the Court” (id. at p. 24). The commission found “no basis to believe that legislative regulation of lawyers per se would be an improvement over judicial regulation” and “no persuasive evidence that a system regulated by the judiciary is biased for respondent lawyers against complainants.” (Id. at p. 5.)

The principle of public representation in professional discipline is also embedded in the state Constitution’s provisions for judicial discipline. The 11-member Commission on Judicial Performance, which administers the system of judicial discipline, consists of three judges, two attorneys, “and 6 citizens who are not judges, retired judges, or members of the State Bar of California . . . .” (Cal. Const., art. VI, § 8, subd. (a).)

Representative statutory provisions providing for public members on state boards or committees administering disciplinary systems for various professions and occupations are the following: Business and Professions Code sections 1000-1 (State Board of Chiropractic Examiners: 2 of 7 members are public members), 1601 (Dental Board of California: 4 of 14 members are public members), 2001 (Medical Board of California: 7 of 19 members are public members), 2008 (Division of Medical Quality: 4 of 12 members are public members), 2230 (Division of Medical Quality panels: 2 of 6 members are public members), 2531 (Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology Board: 3 of 9 members are public members), 2603 (Physical Therapy Board of California: 3 of 7 members are public members), 2702 (Board of Registered Nursing: 3 of 9 members are public members), 2842 (Board of Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians: 6 of 11 members are public members), 2920 (Board of Psychology: 4 of 9 members are public members), 3320 (Hearing Aid Dispensers Examining Committee: 4 of 7 members are public members), 3711 (Respiratory Care Board of California: 4 of 9 members are public members), 4800 (Veterinary Medical Board: 3 of 7 members are public members), 5000 (California Board of Accountancy: 4 of 10 members are public members), 5514 (California Architects Board: 5 of 10 members are public members), and 6711 (Board for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors: 7 of 13 members are public members).