Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Louisiana's Supreme Court has struck a blow to a controversial state law that's given lawmakers who are practicing attorneys the power to delay events in their cases with little judicial supervision. The Supreme Court ruled Friday that Louisiana's legislative continuance statute is unconstitutional because "legislation subverting the courts' constitutional power violates the separation of powers doctrine." Under the law, attorney-lawmakers and other lawyers who are legislative employees have been able to request that court proceedings in any case they're working on be postponed so as not to interfere with legislative business, giving attorney-legislators the power to freeze all events in a case for the entirety of the legislative session as well as 30 days before and after.
The law grants attorney-lawmakers "peremptory grounds" to request these delays, meaning that they don't need to provide judges further justification when making continuance requests. As long as they make their motion at least five days before a court date, judges must grant them within 72 hours, according to the law. "This statute presents the potential for the unfettered and extended delay of trial court proceedings," Justice Jefferson Hughes wrote in the court's majority opinion.
"The courts will not sanction any legislation challenged on the basis that it has the effect of divesting or stripping the courts of their inherent power." The dec.
