Judge Lawrence Marks argues in the Jan. 15 edition of the New York Law Journal that OCA's denial of certification for 46 of the state's most experienced jurists is a budgetary maneuver made necessary by the pandemic and financial crisis. This analysis is short-sighted in assessing its impact on the administration of justice and the independence of the judiciary and ignores the state constitution's mandate that senior judges are entitled to individual consideration of applications for certification to serve beyond the age of 70.

The state constitution, in laying out provisions for certification of senior judges established more than a century ago (when the life expectancy of a judge was decades shorter), requires assessment of an applicant's fitness for service and an establishment of the need for their continued service.