STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2016

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 2206

Honorable Shan S. Tsutsui

President of the Senate

Twenty-Sixth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2012

State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committee on Judiciary and Labor, to which was referred S.B. No. 2206 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO ARTICLE VI, SECTION 3, OF THE HAWAII STATE CONSTITUTION TO INCREASE THE MANDATORY RETIREMENT AGE FOR STATE JUSTICES AND JUDGES,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to propose a constitutional amendment to raise the mandatory retirement age for state judges and justices from seventy to eighty years of age.

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 142 and the League of Women Voters of Hawaii.  The Office of the Public Defender and one private individual submitted comments.

     Your Committee finds that there are a number of judges and justices who are willing and able to serve on the bench past the mandatory retirement age of seventy.  While your Committee recognizes that a mandatory retirement age ensures continued opportunities to serve on the bench, it believes that judges and justices who are willing and able to serve should be allowed to do so until the age of eighty.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Judiciary and Labor that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2206 and recommends that it pass Second Reading and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Judiciary and Labor,

____________________________

CLAYTON HEE, Chair