Federal Judges Owed Back Pay, Jurist Says

U.S. District Judge John Garrett Penn has ruled that the government owes him and his colleagues back wages and future cost-of-living increases under a law ignored for three of the last four years. He also said the failure to pay the cost-of-living increases violated the Constitution, which says federal judges’ compensation “shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.” The restriction was made part of the country’s basic law to protect the independence of the judiciary. Twenty U.S. district court judges had filed the suit, and the lead plaintiff in the case was Spencer Williams, a senior judge from San Francisco. Penn’s ruling did not say how much is due the judges, but he ordered the government to calculate raises based on allowances that are given to most government employees. At issue was the government’s interpretation of the 1989 Ethics Reform Act which revised the pay system for around 1,000 federal judges and other high-ranking government officials.