Ashtabula County Common Pleas Court Judge Charles Hague says the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision in his favor reinforces the status of courts in Ohio and the nation.
“This entire matter is not about me,” Hague said. “It was about the judicial system as it relates to the other branches of our government. The Supreme Court of Ohio upheld and reaffirmed what has been established in our country by the U.S. Constitution and the constitution of every state in the union: that the judiciary is a separate branch of government and its independence must be maintained.”
Hague, who was in Stark County when he learned of the high court’s decision Friday afternoon, announced it to several other judges at the event he was attending.
“When I announced that the inherent powers of courts are alive and well in Ohio, I was met with a large round of applause,” Hague said.
The judge had the full support of the bench, except for Justice Paul E. Pfeifer, who “concurred in judgment only” that is, the justice agreed with the result but not necessarily the rationale.
In the slip opinion State ex rel. Hague v. Ashtabula County Board of Commissioners, the judges note that while they are cognizant of the commissioners’ budget problems in difficult financial times, “ … we are compelled to remind the commissioners that the courts must not be held hostage to competing interests when the courts, in their discretionary power, submit budgetary requests that are reasonable and necessary.”
Hague says this means that, for Ashtabula County, commissioners can build a lodge, support a nursing home, purchase water companies, help operate an airport and invest in other “economic development tools” but those activities cannot overshadow their responsibility to fund the county’s courts at levels that are “reasonable and necessary.”
The judge said the courts take precedence over other county services, including law enforcement, the coroner, auditor or other offices, when it comes to funding. Courts have the unique power to journalize — file as a court order — the amount of their budget request.
“Courts have the inherent power as a separate branch of government to order their reasonable budgets, and the funding sources don’t have the right to second-guess that,” Hague said.
The judge twice journalized his 2009 budget, and he plans to journalize the 2010 request presented to commissioners earlier this month.
He says he hopes the board has learned its responsibility through this court action and commissioners don’t reduce the amount he has requested.
“Otherwise, we’ll be back in the (Ohio) Supreme Court by February,” he said.
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