Directs the legislature to ensure that the number of judges and justices in districts and courts is sufficient; directs the chief administrator of the courts to report on the sufficiency of the number of judges and justices in each court and to make recommendations on such numbers.
STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
8192
2025-2026 Regular Sessions
IN SENATE
May 20, 2025
___________
Introduced by Sen. CLEARE -- read twice and ordered printed, and when
printed to be committed to the Committee on Judiciary
AN ACT to amend the judiciary law, in relation to the sufficiency of the
number of judges and justices in districts and courts
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. The judiciary law is amended by adding a new section 219-f
2 to read as follows:
3 § 219-f. Sufficiency of number of judges and justices in districts and
4 courts. In exercising its powers pursuant to subdivision b of section
5 six of article six of the constitution, the legislature shall seek to
6 ensure that each district and court therein shall have sufficient
7 numbers of judges and justices to perform its functions in a thorough
8 and efficient manner, considering the number of individuals residing in
9 a given judicial district, the number of cases filed in each court, the
10 complexity of such cases, the extent of delays in the disposition of
11 cases in each court, and any other factors used by recognized national
12 or state authorities who study the proper allocation of judicial
13 resources.
14 § 2. Paragraph (j) of subdivision 1 of section 212 of the judiciary
15 law, as added by chapter 156 of the laws of 1978, is amended to read as
16 follows:
17 (j) Collect, compile and publish statistics and other data with
18 respect to the unified court system in order to assist the legislature
19 in performing its functions pursuant to section two hundred nineteen-f
20 of this article and submit annually, on or before the fifteenth day of
21 March, to the legislature and the governor a report of [his] such admin-
22 istrator's activities and the state of the unified court system during
23 the preceding year. Such report shall include recommendations on the
24 number of judges and justices needed in each court, which recommenda-
25 tions shall be acted upon in such manner as the legislature may direct.
26 § 3. This act shall take effect on the one hundred eightieth day after
27 it shall have become a law.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD04224-01-5
