Bureaucracies

My wife and I have begun the process of getting our Israeli driver's licenses.  We went to a local designated optometrist's office for an eye test.  We now need to see our physician (in our chosen health care plan), and from thence, we will need to go to a (not so) local Ministry of Transportation driver's center.   Then our application swill be approved (we hope), and we will then need to take driving lessons (though, with our history of driving in the States, we may only need a few sessions, we are told), and then the road test.

Not an efficient system, even by New York DMV standards.

Meanwhile, our American licenses, together with our passports, will suffice for the next few months.

But never mind the Israeli version of the DMV; we have the Postal shmucks to contend with.  Several times they failed to deliver, or (more often) delivered late packages we sent to our son and other friends and relatives, even when sent via Registered Mail.  With UPS and FedEx, it's still lots of paperwork and expense, but at least the packages reach their destinations in a reasonably timely manner.

But the consensus seems to be that things are improving.  The old Labor Party in Israel was very much into giving patronage plums to lots of its sycophants, and the ways of the old bureaucracy are still entrenched to a large extent.  But as Israel's high-tech sector grows, the toleration for such inefficiencies is, over time, wearing a bit thin.  Labor (Histadrut) still tries to flex its muscles; for example, they had threatened a strike this coming Wednesday, but have now called it off.  Very much like the labor unions everywhere else.

[Not that I oppose labor unions per se.  In proper proportion, they do keep industry honest.  But they themselves need to be reined in by various checks and balances.].

And don't get me started with the banks here.

Okay, okay, enough of the gripes for now.  My wife and I are quite happy with our decision to take on our respective gigs here, notwithstanding the aforementioned problems.  But it takes a special kind of toughness to live in Israel.  So far, we seem to have been able to cut the mustard.

NYC's Opposition to Confidentiality is Confidential

I really did not believe that I would have anything monumental to say that hasn't been said about the Casey Anthony case. No justice was delivered, and even if any or all of the jurors had possessed an IQ exceeding 190, no justice could have been delivered because, with the big time losers for a mother and grandparents (not to mention the unknown and legally nonexistent sperm donor), little Caylee was doomed from the time the sperm penetrated the ovum. The defense counsel, who could have let things sit after winning, partied over the victory, to the shame and deprecation of the legal profession.

In New York a few weeks ago, Matter of Kiara C., a case with some similarities and differences to the Anthony case, was handed down by the Queens County Family Court. Kiara was a 15-year-old teenager from a highly dysfunctional family who, having been impregnated by an illegal alien, hid her pregnancy, and hid the infant upon giving birth, recklessly suffocating the infant in the process. Kiara was tried as a juvenile delinquent and not as an adult.

Kiara is a far, far better person than Casey Anthony. Kiara has graduated high school, and is now in a vocational training program. It doesn't do a whole lot for her deceased infant, but at least Kiara has an outside fighting chance to become a functional and valuable member of society at some level.

The issue in the Matter of Kiara C was whether Kiara's records of delinquency should be sealed. The City of New York had vigorously opposed the motion to seal Kiara's record, but in a well-reasoned opinion, Judge John Hunt wrote that "The adjudication of juvenile delinquency in this case was never intended to constitute a Scarlet Letter which must be forever displayed to the public at large, and the notion of imposing punishment is contrary to the purposes underlying the juvenile delinquency statute."

A reporter for the New York Law Journal queried the Law Department of the City of New York for a comment. What did the spokesperson for the Law Department say? The standard line that they do not comment on cases involving juveniles on account of the confidentiality concerns.

Confidentiality concerns indeed!

The Court's Gatekeepers

New York's has had an interesting and diverse history. Its first European discovery was by an Italian in the service of the French, and there was subsequent colonization under alternating Dutch and British flags before it joined in with American independence. The opening of the Erie Canal made New York City a robust commercial center where economic promise induced many people to immigrate. Among the new immigrants was a significant contingent of Irish, who provided rich fodder for the Tammany Hall political organization. Other groups likewise participated in the political landscape of New York City, and made their contributions. Artifacts from this history, foul and fair, are still very much a part of New York and its culture and government.

New York's legal system is a product of these historical events and trends. Specifically, New York has one of the most intricately developed set of procedural rules for legal practice in the courts. As one whose livelihood depends upon the ability to navigate within the Byzantine structure of the courts, I can attest that the courthouse clerks wield a tremendous amount of power. The corps of court clerks need regulation and oversight as much as any other bureaucracy, else they would quickly spin out of control and into tyranny.

An exemplar of how petty, picayune and penny-ass some court clerks can be is the case of Joseph E. Gehring, Jr., Esq., an attorney who attempted, just two days before the statute of limitations was to blow, to file an affidavit of judgment confession, a common means to secure and collect a debt.

The Clerk of the Court refused to accept the paper for filing because it was a copy and not an original.

It must be understood that Section 2101(e) of New York's Civil Practice Law and Rules ("CPLR") specifically provides that "Except where otherwise specifically prescribed, copies, rather than originals, of all papers, including orders, affidavits and exhibits may be served or filed." And, as recently updated, CPLR Section 2102(c) provides that "a clerk shall not refuse to accept for filing any paper presented for that purpose except where specifically directed to do so by statute or rules promulgated by the chief administrator of the courts, or order of the court."

Gehring sued Norman Goodman, the New York County Clerk and Clerk of the County Supreme Court (in New York, each county has its own Supreme Court, another anomaly of the New York legal system). And Judge Braun ordered Goodman and his subordinates to comply with the law and accept the copy of the affidavit for filing.

I have dealt with clerks in several courts, and can say from my own experiences that the clerks in the New York County Supreme Court are, with some exceptions to be sure, more arrogant than the clerks of the United States Supreme Court. Goodman has been there since 1969, and I have had to deal with his subalterns on numerous occasions. They run hot and cold, but stories of insolence by Goodman's boys and girls abound. Goodman has been implicitly or explicitly chastised by a judge on a number of occasions. This time he had it coming to him.

Where court clerks can make up the rules as they go along, they can also play favorites. And when the court clerks play favorites, the court system is no longer impartial.

Whose Government do They Work For?

We're in the Holy City of Jerusalem, where we are scheduled to remain until our departure back to the States. The particulars of our visit here are beyond the pale of this blog; suffice it to say that it has been and continues to be a wonderful experience.

It is noted that the shmucks at the State Department have done it again! According to a Jerusalem Post article by Ruth Eglash, US citizens in Israel now have to wait 6 months just to register a birth of a child under the new "appointments only" system at the US Consulate. Which makes the appointments a commodity of value, ergo the inevitable trafficking in appointments.

It is parenthetically noted that the State Department has been anti-Jewish and pro-Arab at least since 1815, when Secretary of State (and later, President) James Monroe removed Mordecai Noah as US Consul to Tunis because Noah was Jewish. They have been pandering to the Muslims ever since.

In any event, isn't the function of the State Department supposed to be to serve the needs and interest of Americans? How can such delays promote the best interests of America? And what message is being sent to other nations, friend or foe, when the consulates of the US State Department does not protect and serve Americans?