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The bottom line is this: Once a political matter moves from the political to the judicial arena, political pretentions crumble because Connecticut’s court system is not supposed to be a creature at the beck and call of a one-party state executive department. Even in a one-party authoritarian apparat, Connecticut’s independent and separate judiciary serves constitutionally as a buffer that blunts executive overreach. The judiciary operates according to judicial rules, not executive fiat, and its constitutional independence depends wholly upon the just judgment of judges.
In Judge Matthew J. Budzik’s New Britain Superior Court,
prior claims made by PURA collided with a judicial stone wall.
According to a Hartford Courant report, “CT judge learns
ex-state official [Gillett] misled court on records that were erased,” a Gillett
defense lawyer from Attorney General William Tong’s office admitted in court,
following the resignation of Marisa Gillett as the chairman of PURA,
Connecticut’s Public Utility Regulatory Authority, that Gillett, his client,
had deceived the court: “Lawyers representing former chief utility regulator
Marissa Gillett conceded in court Tuesday that she and her staff knew of the
deletion of electronic records, but misled a judge by failing to disclose the
erasure and claiming the records could not be located.”
The concession was one of several misleading feints intended
to deprive plaintiffs in a suit against PURA of documentation supporting the
claim that Chairwoman Gillett was biased against two of Connecticut’s energy
distributors. At first claiming that discovery data demanded by plaintiffs was
unintentionally deleted, the Attorney General’s office now claims the case
against PURA is moot because Gillett has resigned as Chairwoman of PURA. But
despite her resignation, the claims made in the suit remain unresolved. In
addition to alleging bias by Gillett, the suing energy companies are also
“claiming bias as one of the grounds for reversing a year-old PURA decision
that not only denied them rate increases, but reduced the rates they had
previously been allowed to charge,” according to the Courant account. That
claim – that the prevailing rate reduction should be reversed due to bias – has
yet to be adjudicated, and Budzik’s patience with the Assistant Attorney
General representing Gillett and PURA appears to be wearing thin.
The Courant notes: “In an unusual colloquy with the judge
presiding over a utility suit, an assistant attorney general defending the
Public Utility Regulatory Authority answered ‘yes’ when asked whether PURA
misled the court by choosing not to admit that it was aware records sought by
the court had been erased from Gillett’s telephone by an auto delete program.”
Such an admission – that PURA intentionally misled the court -- can only be
“mooted” by the presiding judge. The
intentional misleading of the court is a direct attack on the dignity of the
court and a discovery process in which both sides in litigation agree to share
information so that justice may be served.
Most judges do not look kindly on attempts to imbalance the
scales of justice or to impudently ignore judicial orders. The Attorney
General’s office is also an officer of the court and, as such, obliged to
advise its clients not to upset the balance of justice in any legal proceeding.
The Attorney General’s office, among the oldest in the
state, was known during colonial times as The King’s Lawyer. The King’s Lawyer
was obligated by law to represent in court the interests of the monarchy, and
the chief duty of the modern Attorney General’s office remains the same.
Attorney General William Tong is the governor’s lawyer, obligated to defend the
interests of Governor Ned Lamont and his executive department at trial. In the
Gillett trial, it has been strongly suggested, the Attorney General’s office
may have conspired with the governor to perpetrate a fraud on the court.
Did Attorney General William Tong, who presents himself as a
model of judicial probity, know what legal advice was shared between his
Assistant Attorney General and PURA? Would an exhaustive examination of emails
passing between Tong’s office and Governor Ned Lamont show that the Attorney
General was made aware of intent to deceive a presiding judge? Assuming Tong
was not asleep at the tiller, did he or did he not advise the governor to cut
Gillett loose before the governor had issued a statement that Gillett’s few
opponents were set upon criticizing her only because they objected to her
successful opposition to unilateral judgments she made concerning energy rate
increases?
Were such judgments economically sound? Were they legally
sound?
Who knew what, and when did they know it?
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