Two former judges will chair a task force for the N.J. Bar Association, which was created to recommend fixes for an ongoing conflict between Republican Gov. Chris Christie and the state Senate’s Democratic majority over judicial appointments.

The task force on judicial independence will do its work for as long as the “current threats to weaken our judiciary” remain, said Ralph Lamparello, the Bar association president. The co-chairs are Dorothea Wefing and Maurice Gallipoli, both of whom were appointed to the bench by a Republican governor, Thomas H. Kean.

Lamparello said that “since the 1947 state constitution, which resulted in the wholesale remaking of our New Jersey courts, there has been no more paramount issue facing us as a profession than the current threats to weaken our judiciary by undermining its independence.”

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