The Associated Press reports:

The independence of New Jersey judges is under attack by Gov. Chris Christie and lawmakers, retired judges and lawyers told a state bar association task force Tuesday.

Speakers said the process of judicial appointments and lifetime tenure should be changed and judges should get regular pay raises and no longer be forced to retire when they turn 70.

“I was so proud to be the chief justice in this court system that was looked at as one of the finest if not the finest in this country,” said Deborah Poritz, who was chief justice of the state Supreme Court from 1996 to 2006. “I had no sense of how easy it could be to lose that, how quickly we could lose that.”

Poritz was one of many speakers who cited “The Federalist Papers,” used to pass the U.S. Constitution, in arguing for an independent judiciary.

New Jersey judges, particularly state Supreme Court justices, have long been criticized by conservatives for a string of landmark rulings dating to the 1970s that forced the state’s municipalities to make zoning laws that made it illegal to keep out poor people, forced state taxpayers to put more money into schools in impoverished cities and allowed civil unions and then marriage for gay couples. Critics say those were decisions that should not be made by a small number of judges.

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