Much riding on pick for Ga. high court

How often national publicity overshadows events of great importance in our own state. Later this summer the U.S. Senate will hold hearings in Washington to consider President Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor as a justice on the nation’s Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, Georgia’s Gov. Sonny Perdue, with much less public awareness and fanfare, will soon replace the retiring Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears with

his pick for Georgia’s highest court — where many decisions impact the daily lives of Georgians. Unlike the president’s nomination, no confirmation of Perdue’s selection will be required.

The governor’s choice will take her or his place among six other state Supreme Court justices, and may tip the balance on the outcome of cases of vital importance to Georgians, including what the Georgia Constitution means. Given what’s at stake, Georgians should quicken their interest in a matter central to our rights and liberties — who will judge us here at home?

Adding to the importance of the governor’s selection is a unique Georgia twist. Georgia’s new justice, like all judges in Georgia, will face a growing rift between our state judicial branch and the executive and legislative branches.

It’s no secret that the governor, and our Legislature, don’t particularly care for our courts as a whole. After all, judges act as a restraint on excesses of the other two branches, which are fueled by unfettered political and personal agendas. Power resents restraint. In recent years, the gubernatorial-legislative cabal — when not feuding between themselves — has acted, separately or jointly, on that resentment by undermining the judiciary.

Use of retired senior judges to assist courts in expediting trials and other court business has been eliminated, a financially irresponsible waste of great judicial experience. The courts’ historic ability to redress some private wrongs and injuries has been reduced.

The public defender system was transferred to the executive branch, destroying the crucial liaison between that system and the courts in which its cases are tried. The fate of thousands of defendants, some jailed for long periods while awaiting trial, are directly affected. Using the recession as an excuse (Georgia’s version of Washington’s let-no-crisis-go-unused), that cabal has unilaterally slashed court budgets, already minuscule at less than 1 percent of the overall state budget, with no regard for the effect upon criminal and civil trials and other daily activities of judges necessary for a healthy economy and society.

We have seen at least one county courthouse closed one day per month, and various reductions and furloughs of court personnel and resources imposed or discussed. And there are reports of a possible special session of our state Legislature to further cut the state budget, which may include more cuts to the courts, which could force widespread court closings.

What happens when a courthouse is closed or its accessibility limited, or counsel denied or delayed? However short the closure or reduced access, or denial of counsel, essential freedoms, including habeas corpus, the “great writ” by which courts can free illegally imprisoned citizens, are impeded if not lost entirely.

Brief closings seem insignificant. But for that period, judicial review — won at great cost — is attenuated. An essential difference between democracy and tyranny is blurred, however slightly. Small erosions grow. So-called cost savings come at great hidden costs. Enfeebled courts imperil liberties.

The sum total of these erosions of our courts has created a new qualification for Georgia judges. Georgia’s judges are going to have to possess enhanced political acumen and backbone to protect our courts from executive and legislative encroachments. Such resistance to manhandling and meddling from the other branches will be particularly difficult, given that the new state Supreme Court justice, like many other state judges, will have been put in office by the very governor who shares the antipathy against courts which is at the heart of the problem.

So Georgians had better watch the Georgia Supreme Court selection at least as closely as that in Washington. If our courts are not kept free, they cannot keep us free.

E. Wycliffe Orr is a Gainesville attorney and former state representative.