The Text

The division of the state into four judicial department is continued as now constituted by law. Once every ten years, the legislature may alter the boundaries of the judicial departments, but without increasing the number thereof, and each department shall be bounded by the lines of judicial districts. The appellate divisions of the supreme court are continued, and shall consist of seven justices of the supreme court in each of the first and second departments, and five justices in each of the other departments. In each appellate division, four justices shall constitute a quorum, and the concurrence of three shall be necessary to a decision. No more than five justices shall sit in any case.
The governor shall designate the presiding justice of each appellate division, who shall act as such during his term of office and shall be a resident of the department. The other justices of the appellate divisions shall be designated by the governor, from all the justices elected to the supreme court, for terms of five years or the unexpired portions of their respective terms of office, if less than five years. The justices heretofore designated shall continue to sit in the appellate divisions until the terms of their respective designations shall expire. From time to time as the terms of the designations expire, or vacancies occur, the governor shall make new designations. He may also, on request of any appellate division, make temporary designations in case of the absence or inability to act of any justice in such appellate division, for service only during such absence or inability to act. In case any appellate division shall certify to the governor that one or more additional justices are needed for the speedy disposition of the business before it, the governor shall designate an additional justice or additional justices; but when the need for such additional justice or justices shall no longer exist, the appellate division shall so certify to the governor, and thereupon service under such designation or designations shall cease. A majority of the justices designated to sit in any appellate division shall at all times be residents of the department.
Whenever the appellate division in any department shall be unable to dispose of its business within a reasonable time, a majority of the presiding justices of the several departments at a meeting called by the presiding justice of the department in arrears may transfer any pending appeals from such department to any other department for hearing and determination.
The several appellate divisions, except as hereinafter provided, shall have and exercise such original or appellate jurisdiction as is now or may hereafter be prescribed by law. Each appellate division shall have power to appoint and remove its clerk and attendants. No justice of the appellate division shall, within the department to which he may be designated to perform the duties of an appellate justice, exercise any of the powers of a justice of the supreme court, other than those of a justice out of court, and those pertaining to the appellate division, except that he may decide causes or proceedings theretofore submitted, or hear and decide motions submitted by consent of counsel, but any such justice, when not actually engaged in performing the duties of such appellate justice in the department to which he is designated, may hold any term of the supreme court and exercise any of the powers of a justice of the supreme court in any judicial district in any other department of the state. From and after the last day of December, eighteen hundred and ninety-five, the appellate division shall have the jurisdiction now exercised by the supreme court at its general terms and by the general terms of the court of common pleas for the city and county of New York, the superior court of the city of New York, the superior court of Buffalo and the city of Brooklyn, and such additional jurisdiction as may be conferred by the legislature. The justices of the appellate division in each department shall have power to fix the times and places for holding special and trial terms of the supreme court held therein, and to assign the justices in the departments to hold such terms; or to make rules therefor.