I want an Article III, §1judge!
Do I have a right to an Article lll judge to hear a case involving my rights and property? Article lll directs that the “judicial Power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme Court and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish,” and provides that these federal courts shall be staffed by judges who hold office during good behavior and whose compensation shall not be diminished during tenure in office. As recently as 1986 plaintiffs in federal court were challenging agency authority on the basis that those constitutional provisions prohibited the legislature from delegating of adjudicative functions to a non-Article lll body. Those plaintiffs lost.The result of that loss is that we have agencies enforcing the very rules they promulgated in an administrative hearing system populated by judges that are closely tied to the very agencies they oversee the enforcement actions of. It is not unusual to find that an administrative law judge presiding over hearings involving the same departments they previously worked in for years. Often they are paid by that department and housed in that department’s facilities together with the investigators and examiners who will appear in their courts to prosecute the licensees. There is little or no firewall between them.Aside from the potential for bias in those tribunals, there is also a shortage of resources. Courtrooms are converted meeting rooms, complete with linoleum tables; hearings are recorded on pocket sized personal recording systems; witnesses sit at the same table as attorneys and the judge; and the judges are relatively poorly trained and paid. In short, many people are denied the ability to earn a living at the hands of a legal system that we would otherwise never tolerate. The courts may say the system promotes “judicial economy,” but in reality it promotes injustice.