The state Constitution empowers the New York City mayor to appoint judges to the city’s Criminal and Family Courts for 10-year terms, and to fill interim vacancies on Civil Court. While the Constitution grants the mayor an unfettered right to name these judges, for nearly 50 years, successive mayors have self-limited their discretion in order to ensure that appointees are qualified and to guard against improper political interference. 

Like his six immediate predecessors, Mayor Mamdani pledged to channel his appointment power through the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary, a 19-member body that screens candidates according to Mamdani’s Jan. 2 Executive Order. The committee ensures that the judicial appointment process is “merit-based, independent, fair and publicly credible” and prohibits the mayor from appointing a person to the bench unless the person is “nominated by the........

© NY Daily News