Once again on the oath of office of taxi drivers

Occupational licensing is rampant in this country.

According to one study, 30% of U.S. workforce is licensed or certified.

The study was recently referenced in a law review that was, in turn, relied upon by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners v. Federal Trade Commission, decided on February 25, 2015 and declining to give immunity to the State Board of Dental Examiners controlled by market participants, I wrote about that case earlier here.

The concept of occupational licensing is simple.

It is permission by the state to an individual to privately practice a certain profession, based on meeting certain requirements.

Once again, it is a permission for private practice.

It is not an application for appointment or election for a public office.

When occupational licenses are given to doctors, engineers, taxi drivers, they are not pronounced "officers" of a certain branch of the government.

Not so with attorneys.

When a private individual receives a license to practice law, he or she is also "sworn in" as an "officer of the court".

What does this oath of office mean?

Does it provide to the attorney absolute judicial immunity, as court personnel has?

Only to some of attorneys, such as prosecutors, whether civil or criminal, but not to private attorneys.

Actually, the embattled Judge Tormey (see here and here) has granted absolute judicial immunity for fraudulent acts during litigation to a private attorney, the same Jonathan S. Follender (who, in addition to his practice, is a justice in the Denning Town Court in Ulster County, New York) who was favored by Judges Eugene Peckam and Carl Becker, see my previous blog.

Yet, Judge Dowd quickly refused to recognize Judge Tormey's gift to his brother-in-arms Jonathan Follender as a binding precedent of the court, because recognizing it as a precedent would have invalidated the whole proceedings against my husband Mr. Neroni who Judge Dowd hates with a passion.

Judge Dowd actually reproached me for trying to present "dicta" as precedent.

Judge Dowd's refusal to apply Judge Tormey's gift to a private attorney-judge to all private attorneys is that Judge Tormey could choose, based on whatever powers he does not have, to give a one-time gift like that to his brother-in-arms, but that gift of new law cannot be equally applied to the rest of private attorneys, the mere mortals.

So, when private attorneys are sworn in as "officers of the court", does it mean the person actually holds a public office, or is it yet another pretense of the court system to use this pronouncement to require more from independent private attorneys?

The only time when the court recalls that a private attorney is "an officer of the court" is when the court wants to point out that the private attorney is "out of line" - for example, when you are criticizing a judge for misconduct.

An independent private attorney, especially the one who is not politically connected, must maintain in himself and in the public religious blind faith in the integrity of the courts while the courts, including judges and court personnel "enjoy" gave themselves absolute judicial immunity FOR MALICIOUS AND CORRUPT ACTS no matter what they do and are naturally not entitled to any trust at all because of that.

But a big question arises - Constitutions of most states prohibit individuals from holding more than one public office.

Yet, we know that lawyers, while all being officially designated as "officer of the court", are overpowering both the executive and the legislative branches of the state governments.

Is it a conflict of interest, should lawyers be cast out of executive and legislative branches of the government because all lawyers are "officers of the court" and cannot be trusted to control and impose "checks and balances" upon the branch of the government that they are (1) officers of, and (2) which controls their livelihood through licensing?

And the ultimate question - how can an attorney be appearing as an advocate in the same court that he or she is an officer of?

See once again my blog about the Appellate Division 4th Department's clerk of the court who stated in her recent letter to me that disciplinary prosecutors are actually employees of the court system, confirming to me what I asserted time and again, that attorney disciplinary proceeding is a mess of conflicts of interests where the three branches of the government have merged in a happy incest? 

What does appearing of "officers of the court" in courts they are officers of do to the court neutrality?

What does it do to independent advocacy?

Isn't it true that a court may not be an advocate?

Doesn't advocacy by court officers invalidates the very existence of advocacy and courts as they exist now in the U.S.?

And, if private individuals who simply want to practice their profession as lawyers and earn a living, must take an "oath of office" as "officers of the court" (without being paid as such), should we then push for oaths of office of all individuals who apply for occupational licenses?

An oath of office for taxi drivers, anyone?

The idea that officers of the court should not be members of the legislatures, that I developed in this blog, belongs to my friend Diane Gochin, of Pennsylvania, to whom I extend my appreciation.