New Jersey Supreme Court rules judges don't have to pay more toward benefits

The judges won't see increases in pension or health insurance contributions.

New Jersey’s Supreme Court ruled today that the state’s judges don’t have to contribute more to their pensions and health benefits.

The narrow 3-2 decision followed a challenge by a state Superior Court judge in Hudson County.

Judge Paul DePascale sued last year, saying a new law requiring increased contributions violates another law that set judges’ salaries and said they cannot be reduced.
Attorneys for the state argued that law doesn’t apply to other compensation such as pension and health benefits.

Gov. Chris Christie has been harshly critical of judges who oppose the law, which affects hundreds of thousands of other public-sector employees. He has said he would consider putting the issue before voters in November if the courts didn’t rule his way. He did not immediately comment on today’s ruling.

The court’s majority wrote today that the issue is solely whether the law violates the state constitution, and not whether justices and judges should contribute to their pension and health care insurance plans or whether any future judicial pay raise can be used to offset increased pension and health care contributions.

“We conclude that it does” violate the constitution, the court wrote. “No court of last resort — including the United States Supreme Court — has upheld the constitutionality of legislation of this kind.”

In a dissenting opinion, Justices Helen Hoens and Anne Patterson — the latter a Christie nominee — wrote that the burden of proving the law was constitutional should have fell on the plaintiff and not on the state.