Your Legislators: County Courts Deemed Central Municipal Court

The New Jersey Senate took a break from discussing Governor Christie’s proposed budget Thursday to vote on several pieces of legislation. Among them was Senate Bill 516, which is co-sponsored by District 39 Sen. Gerald Cardinale. It was approved unanimously, 34-0 by the Senate.

The bill authorizes a central municipal court, such as the Bergen County Courts to hear cases brought forward by the County Office of Consumer Affairs. According to the bill, only Bergen County meets the requirements outlined for a central municipal court to “adjudicate cases filed by agents of the county health department, members of the county police department and force or county park police system." In addition, the statute provides that a central municipal court may adjudicate other cases within its jurisdiction referred by the vicinage Assignment Judge pursuant to the Rules of Court.

As part of the bill, a fiscal notice was created by the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) which stated that "the bill would not increase the number of complaints generated but would shift certain matters away from the local municipal courts in Bergen County to the Bergen County Central Municipal Court."

With the creation of the Central Municipal Court, all fines and costs collected will be disbursed to the county itself. Currently, all fine amounts on cases handled by the local municipal courts are disbursed to the local municipality.

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The Senate also moved Senate Bill 2308 by a vote of 34-1 in favor. The bill, while not sponsored by any District 39 legislators, will provide the parole board with discretion to reconsider parole eligibility for certain crimes after a certain period of time.

Governor Christie had conditionally vetoed S-2308 in March as a way to accomplish two things. The first would expand the maximum wait from three to 10 years and eliminate any maximum on the number of years a violent criminal would have to wait for another parole hearing, as well as remove the controversial and dangerous law that allows violent criminals to be eligible for early release.

During the hearing and at times heated discussion, Sen. Cardinale made the following statement.

"I didn't intend to speak but the debate requires that some kind of reason be brought to the proceedings in this house. The partisanship on this bill is so thick I wonder if there is a knife sharp enough to cut it. We criticize a governor who is trying to correct something but make a hero of a governor that said this bill is so terrible it needs to be fixed, but still signed it. Actions have consequences. We had a governor sign a bill that he recognized as flawed is wrong because of time constraints.

"Two died. That's serious," Cardinale continued. "I think a lesson for all on both sides of the aisle to to get rid of this dire partisanship that has taken over the last few years and look at what we're actually doing. Start acting on behalf of the people we're supposed to represent instead of their ideologies or our ideologies, stop being at one another's throats all the time and start talking to each other a little more. When I first came into this house, there were 19 Republicans and 21 Democrats, but two Democrats did not come to meetings so we were effectively 19-19. And we talked to one another, worked with one another, listened to one another. That was a better time. It wasn't so terribly long ago that we were 20-20 and had the same experience, we talked and listened to one another. At least in my view, and hopefully yours, we did a better job. Why don't we try and do a better job again?"

Sen. Diane Allen (R-Burlington, Camden) and Cardinale (R-Bergen) introduced S-2814 on April 11, that would the early release program. A by Assembly Republicans Dave Rible (R-Monmouth) and (R-Bergen), will be introduced at a later date.