As a member of the Cincinnati City Council, I have taken an oath to the Constitution. When I swore the oath, I was reminded of a hallmark of our system of government − that there are no kings and we are all subject to a system of checks and balances. The belief that each branch of government is equal has been fundamental to the decisions that I’ve made as an elected official.
As a former employee of the Hamilton County Clerk of Courts and as an ardent advocate for eviction reform, I am saddened by the recent Ohio Supreme Court ruling against Clerk of Courts Pavan Parikh. The key question in the case involved whether an independently elected clerk could determine what information appeared through a routine records search on the Clerk of Courts website. In my mind, the legal question is one of checks and balances: How far can the courts push their authority to subsume the inherent authority of an independently elected executive official in running their operations?
Unsurprisingly, the Ohio Supreme Court sided with an expansive view of judicial authority, undermining the clerk’s role as a check and balance on the courts.
Amid our country’s housing crisis, it was brought to my attention that some housing providers were utilizing remote court access instead of paying for formal background checks on potential tenants by performing a search of eviction records by name of applicant on the clerk’s website. The search results do not easily differentiate between parties with similar names. The result is that residents receive adverse housing decisions without housing providers taking reasonable efforts to confirm that the cases searched on the clerk’s website were regarding the correct applicant.
To help rectify this concern, the clerk’s office implemented a policy that has been used successfully in other large Ohio cities to remove website access to aged eviction records for cases that had either been dismissed or cases in which any judgment had been satisfied. At all points in time, all records were available to the public. Any individual was welcome to call, email, or appear in person to request those documents, and diligent clerk’s office staff would have been happy to provide them.
The municipal court judges disagreed with this protection. Instead of choosing to support this policy change, or continuing a negotiation on particulars of disclaimer language, the municipal court ordered the clerk to run his office the way they saw fit. That decision to issue an order, punishable by contempt, left the clerk no other option than to seek counsel.
The clerk wanted to continue negotiations with counsel present, but the municipal court again disagreed and threatened contempt. This left no other option than to resolve the disagreement with the same recourse afforded to all parties in our country under the Constitution, by seeking relief from an independent court of competent jurisdiction.
I know that Clerk Parikh and every employee in his office work to protect the rights of Hamilton County residents and level the playing field for the vulnerable with the powerful. When looking at housing issues, particularly, the clerk of court’s Help Center worked with City Council to implement limited representation for Cincinnati residents facing eviction.
The eviction process is broken. When the Help Center provides legal representation to level the playing field, residents receive more favorable outcomes, specifically households that are led by Black women. In the first seven months of providing representation, more than 84% of eviction cases litigated to the final outcome by the Help Center were dismissed. That means more families are stabilized in their homes, which keeps children from couch-surfing and our shelter system from being overloaded. This is why the clerk’s policy change was necessary and narrowly tailored to help those most in need.
Presiding and Administrative Municipal Court Judge Josh Berkowitz’s tone in his recent op-ed, where he resorts to celebrating the outcome of this case, should concern us all. It is distinctly unjudicial. Judges are expected to rule on cases and controversies before them without fear or favor. Given Berkowitz’s remarks, it should be clear why the clerk felt compelled to seek an independent court to rule on these issues.
This is the same court that, for months, chose to ignore the city of Cincinnati’s “Pay to Stay” ordinance to address eviction issues. The court’s role is to rule on the law, not to ignore it.
Judges are not kings. They are subject to the same system of checks and balances as all elected officials. When there is disagreement about the law, the proper forum is to appeal to an independent court to rule upon the law. It is the responsibility of all of us as Hamilton County residents to believe in the justice system that we have, and I call on all of my fellow residents to join in the aspiration for change.
Councilwoman Meeka D. Owens has served on the Cincinnati City Council since 2022 and currently chairs the Climate, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee. She is a native of Avondale.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Judges are not kings and Hamilton County needs to remember that | Opinion
Reporting by Meeka Owens / Cincinnati Enquirer
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
