MICHAEL NOWACKI TESTIFIES BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT REGARDING RULES AND FORMS, APRIL 14, 2014!

Annual Public Hearing

 Testimony

 Michael Nowacki

   April 14, 2014

             Connecticut General Statute 51-14 (b) (Exhibit 1) states specific protocols be followed by the judiciary when recommending proposed modifications to the Connecticut Practice Book Rules:

 “The Chief Justice shall report any such rules to the General Assembly for study at the beginning of each regular session.  Such rules shall be referred by the speaker of the House or the president of the Senate to the judiciary committee for its consideration and such committee shall schedule hearings thereon.”

            Evidence provided in the appendix to my remarks today provide factual proof, that Supreme Court Chief Justices, since 1969 (Exhibit 2), have failed to provide to the legislature the proposed “Practice Book Rules” at the beginning of the legislative sessions as the law requires.

Furthermore, factual proof exists, that the Connecticut legislature’s judiciary committee has failed in its duties to conduct hearings on the Practice Book Rules since 1968 (Exhibit 3), thus denying the “electorate” the opportunity to “provide input” into the process (as required by law) to ensure that the following constraints were enforced in the “study” of Practice Book Rules, as defined in C.G.S. 51-14 (a) (Exhibit 1):

“Such rules shall not abridge, enlarge or modify any substantive right or the jurisdiction of any of the courts.”

            The Connecticut Practice Book has been used unlawfully since 1969 by the judiciary’s Rules Committee to engage in self-empowerment unintended by the legislative restraints articulated in 1957 in C.G.S. 51-14 (b).

At this public hearing, we will focus on current Practice Book Rules which are unlawful abridgments of fundamental constitutional rights, rules which are discriminatory in their construction to self-represented parties and those who claim disabilities under provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Factual proof is also provided in the appendix to these remarks that on June 29, 2007, Justice Peter Zarella, as captured on page 32-33 of the annual judges meeting minutes (Exhibit 4), proposed a “six pronged resolution” which sanctioned “non-public meetings” with ranking members of the legislative judiciary committee to discuss the proposed Practice Book Rules in a direct abridgment of the protocols set forth in C.G.S. 51-14 (b). 

The following year, Practice Book Rule 9a (Exhibit 5) was created, in a brazen circumvention of the public’s rights to “hearings” to be conducted in the legislature, as required by C.G.S. 51-14 (b) (Exhibit 6).

Upon appointment as a judicial officer, each judge in the State of Connecticut, pursuant Article VI of the United States Constitution, and defined in C.G.S. Chapter 4 Oaths,  §1-25 takes the following oath or affirmation:

“You do solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be) that you will support the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the state of Connecticut, so long as you continue a citizen thereof, and that you will faithfully discharge, according to the law, the duties of the office of…to the best of your abilities, so help you God.”

            Note that unlike other oaths of office in the State of Connecticut, a judicial officer who takes this oath (Exhibit 7) is not required to do so under the penalty of perjury.

The Connecticut Constitution states in Article XX (Exhibit 8):

“Section 1 of article fifth of the constitution is amended to read as follows:  The judicial power of the state shall be vested in a supreme court, an appellate court, a superior court, and such lower courts as the general assembly shall, from time to time, ordain and establish.  The powers and jurisdiction of these courts are defined by law.”

            Inasmuch as the Chief Justices of the Supreme Court, including the present Chief Justice Chase Rogers, Justices Peter Zarella, and Dennis Eveleigh and Senator Andrew McDonald as chair of the judiciary committee prior to his appointment to the Supreme Court have failed to uphold the tenets of C.G.S. 51-14 (b), I am seeking the repeal of Practice Book Rule 9 (a) because it is directly contradictory to the clear and unambiguous protocols for introducing modifications to the Connecticut Practice Book Rules set forth in C.G.S. 51-14 (b). 

            Based upon factual presentation today of the “wanton, reckless and malicious” misuse of the Connecticut Practice Book to “self-empower” the judiciary in violation of C.G.S. §4-165, we seek the resignations of four members of the Supreme Court and the co-chairs of the judiciary committee, Representative Gerald Fox Jr. and Senator Eric Coleman for their roles in a “seditious” abridgment of the powers of separation of government defined in the U.S. Constitution and  in the failure to conduct “hearings” on proposed Practice Book Rules in the legislature again in 2014.