The California State Supreme Court overrides the State Legislature and orders funding of attorney discipline - the discipline that, according to the same court, has no meaning

I wrote earlier on this blog that the California highest court has ruled that there is no ineffective assistance of counsel when a criminal defendant was represented by a suspended attorney.

That one decision made the entire attorney regulation system in California, the system that exists since 1926 and is mired in controversy since its beginning, completely meaningless.

Yet, it continued.

And, of course, California State Bar - regulating lawyers by lawyers, for reasons that have obviously nothing to do with protection of consumers of legal services (since suspended attorneys could provide as good a representation as licensed attorneys) - continued to operate like nothing happened.

In 2012, the annual dues of the State Bar were set by the State Legislature at $410.00 from every attorney licensed in California - which was necessarily put into the fees of California lawyers, as a cost of doing business.

 Then there were a series of "controversies" with California State Bar, including a disciplinary action against its own former leader turned whistleblower - that has eventually led to the State Legislature refusing to allow the California State Bar to collect its membership dues at this time.

 The State of California Legislature stopped short though from enacting a law that would demand the State Bar of California to split its regulation and its professional advocacy functions - which should be a requirement for an "arm of the government".

 Nevertheless, the funding bill that would allow the State of California to collect membership dues, did not pass this year.

 So, what did California State Bar do when it was stripped of ability to collect member dues for purposes of attorney regulation?

 Did it stop collect membership dues - because there was no law allowing California State Bar to do that?

No way.  The California State Bar bypassed the lack of Legislative bill authorizing it to collect annual fees and applied to the California State Supreme Court for an override of the Legislature.

The California Supreme Court stepped in and allowed the California State Bar - in the absence of the required bill allowing to charge annual membership fees - to charge every attorney a "regulatory assessment", without indicating an amount - so, the amount can be unlimited, to fund the disciplinary system, whether that particular attorney is subject to disciplinary proceedings at the time the fee is charged, or not.

So, the California Supreme Court is now defying the Legislature in order to allow its own "administrative arm", the California State Bar, to do exactly what the Legislature did not allow it to do - to collect membership dues, albeit in a somewhat reduced amount.

That is the same California Supreme Court, remember, that claimed that representation by a non-attorney (an attorney whose license was suspended for non-payment of those same membership dues) is effective representation - even though it is also unauthorized practice of law.

Let's recall that regulation of attorneys - by attorneys and judges - must be slam-dunk and free of any conceptual problems.  Because judges and attorneys are legal experts, right?  That was the underlying reasoning for allowing regulation of attorneys by attorneys and judges, and not by lay members of the public, right?

Yet, it is an ongoing mess.

Because the top state court of the State of California:

1.      makes prosecutors of attorney disciplinary proceedings its own "arm", creating an unconstitutional accuser-adjudicator problem;

2.      legislates (illegally) for funding for disciplinary proceedings from attorney-members of the State Bar; and

3.      makes attorney disciplinary proceedings meaningless because representation by a suspended attorney, in the opinion of that same court, is as good and effective as representation by a licensed attorney - so WHY LICENSE ATTORNEYS THEN?

And, you know how the State Supreme Court of the State of California got out of the quagmire that it is overruling the State Legislature and instead legislates on the issue of funding of California State Bar?

By disingenuously claiming that "the court has no view on arguments it received urging it use its authority to fund the agency’s non-disciplinary functions, and that the court will not stop the bar from seeking donations to fund those activities".

That's it - when every attorney licensed to practice in the State of California receives a demand for a "charitable donation" to fund a government agency's investigative and prosecutorial activities, that is called "voluntary" and not mandatory.

Of course, if a donation is voluntary, it cannot be of a pre-set amount from each licensed lawyer of the State of California.

Because, if a donation is voluntary, it may be given or not given, and, if given, it can be given in any amount at all, or "in kind", not of a set amount of $297.00 from every "donee".

Nevertheless, the "donation" ruse was immediately blown by the press, where the court's pretended non-interference with the State Bar's solicitations of charitable donations of $297 from every licensed attorney in the State of California in order to fund the State Bar's disciplinary proceedings (or, most likely, salary and benefits of disciplinary investigators and prosecutors) was presented as a direct order allowing the State Bar to do what the Legislature did not allow them to do - to CHARGE California lawyers an annual fee of $297.

Yet, at the same time as claiming that the court will not interfere with solicitations of "donations", the court also did two things:

In September of 2016, it issued a "letter" announcing that it has "inherent authority" to arrange for funding of attorney regulation if the Legislature does not provide for such funding.

And, on November 17, 2016, the California State Court issued a direct order allowing the State Bar to collect a "special regulatory assessment" from California attorneys, without indicating HOW MUCH IS TO BE COLLECTED.  So, since the order only speaks of a "regulatory assessment", but does not provide for the amount, supposedly that gives authority to the California State Bar to set that "assessment" at any amount, at its whim.

When a court orders financing of investigations and prosecutions of its own "arm" dealing with such investigations and prosecutions, at the time when the State Legislature, charged with that duty, specifically refuses to so do - because of controversies and unethical behavior within the State Bar - that legislative act makes the court so much an advocate for the prosecution that disciplinary activities that the court felt it has an "inherent constitutional authority" to fund became completely and irreversibly tainted.

I do not know about authority of the California Supreme Court to fund disciplinary prosecutions of attorneys.

But I know that the U.S. Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land, and that the California State Constitution may not provide to California attorneys subject to discipline LESS protection than the federal Constitution does.

And, under the federal Constitution, when a Court acts as a legislator and an advocate, financing activities of a disciplinary prosecutor, and when the disciplinary prosecutor is considered an "administrative arm" of the disciplinary court, such a situation is intolerable under federal constitutional law as an "accuser-adjudicator" problem, invalidating all orders on discipline of California attorneys.

Not that the judiciary would care for doing anything unlawful.  They are the law in this country. 

Correct?