Give Chief Judge Judith Kaye credit for nerve. If legislators can legislate themselves a pay raise, why shouldn’t judges be able to litigate themselves a pay raise? Such seems to be the logic, or lack of it, animating the lawsuit Judge Kaye filed yesterday on behalf of herself and her colleagues on the state bench.

We don’t take the suit lightly. Judge Kaye is a formidable figure, and the lawyer who represents her, Bernard Nussbaum, is one of the giants of the bar. Still, the judges say their annual salary of $139,600 is low compared to federal judges and associates at corporate law firms, but they neglect to mention that the salaries are high compared to county prosecutors and public defenders, who are also important participants in our justice system. If the state judges want to quit to go become associates at corporate law firms or apply for spots on the federal bench, no one is stopping them.

The suit claims the current pay “demeans the Judiciary,” but one also might see it as demeaning for the judges to essentially order themselves a raise by pleading their case before a judge with his own financial interest. They could have brought an action in federal court, where the judges would not have their own pay affected by the case they are being asked to consider. The case claims the independence of the judiciary is being diminished. But what about the independence of the legislature?

Our own view is in favor of merit pay for judges, much as we favor a system of merit pay for teachers. Doubtless some judges deserve a raise. But recent years have seen a state judge order billions of dollars in new spending on New York City schools in the name of “equity.” Other judges have set bail too low for violent individuals who posted the money and then allegedly committed violent crimes. Today comes news of a judge who let a man who had been arrested 29 times for sex offenses back on the streets to strike again, against the counsel of the attorney general’s office, which wanted to confine the offender civilly. Why would anyone want to give judges like these a raise?

Judge Kaye is seeking to increase the overall compensation pool for the state’s judges when the governor is speaking of 10% overall reductions in state government spending. If it is to be a blanket increase without attention paid to merit, there’s little reason to expect that the quality of the state judiciary will improve by the 20% that Judge Kaye wants added to judicial salaries.