Proponents of Amendment H believe that making it more difficult to discipline judges, as Amendment H would do, would strengthen Colorado’s courts. I and many others disagree.

He opinion article published in The Post He alleged that a board created by H would have final authority over disciplinary matters. This statement is not correct. According to H, the Supreme Court would have much more authority in disciplinary cases than it does now, and would have final authority.

Currently, the Colorado Judicial Discipline Commission has the power to privately discipline a judge independently. If discipline is applied, which is rare, it is almost always private. H would take away this independence from the disciplinary commission and create a private appeals process for judges to challenge private discipline.

Whenever a judge appeals discipline, the Supreme Court will always have the final say in a disciplinary case. You see, H would give the Supreme Court appellate authority over the board H would create.

The Supreme Court would have a “de novo” review of the questions of law. That means the Supreme Court would interpret the Code of Judicial Conduct, which is vaguely worded. The facts would not constitute a violation of the Code unless the Supreme Court says so. YH would allow the Supreme Court to rule on any disciplinary cases.

What about the adjudication board promoted by H’s defenders? You wouldn’t have access to it. No member of the public could appeal to the board that H wants you to place in the state constitution.

Only judges could appeal to the adjudicating board a disciplinary commission’s determination regarding private discipline. The disciplinary commission’s annual reports show it dismissed more than 97% of complaints filed by the public over the past 40 years. Nothing in H changes the dismissal process. And nothing in H creates an appeals process for complaints dismissed by the commission.

The disciplinary commission has processed 99.8% of complaints privately over the last 40 years. Nothing in H would change this privacy.

H would create a board that would have different functions depending on whether the discipline commission requests public or private discipline. It would serve an intermediate appellate role in cases involving private discipline. In the last 40 years, the private discipline has been issued 182 times.

When the disciplinary commission desires public discipline, the new board would act as a court of first instance. In the last 40 years, only 10 judges have received public discipline. Only two of those cases involved a hearing. The rest were stipulations. But if the board acted regarding public discipline, its actions would be public.

H creates much more secrecy than transparency. In most cases, a board panel would meet in private when a judge attempts to overcome the issuance of a private discipline. Such secret appeals would reduce public confidence in the system.

People have been misled by H’s defenders, who have continued the op-ed’s claim that the new board would have the authority to conduct its own investigations. That is not in the language that H would put in the state constitution. The claim is not consistent with the functions of the board as set out in H. And, again, the public would not have access to the board.