The Text

The Legislature shall divide the State into four judicial departments. The first department shall consist of the county of New York; the others shall be bounded by county lines, and be compact and equal in population as nearly as may be. Once every ten years the Legislature may alter the judicial departments, but without increasing the number thereof. There shall be an Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, consisting of seven justices in the first department, and of five justices in each of the other departments. In each department four 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. From all the justices elected to the Supreme Court the Governor shall designate those who shall constitute the Appellate Division in each department; and he shall designate the presiding justice thereof, who shall act as such during his term of office, and shall be a resident of the department. The other justices shall be designated for terms of five years or the unexpired portions of their respective terms of office, if less than five years. From time to time as the terms of such designations expire, or vacancies occur, he shall make new designations. A majority of the justices so designated to sit in the Appellate Division, in each department shall be residents of the department. He may also make temporary designations in case of the absence or inability to act of any justice in the Appellate Division, or in case the presiding justice of any Appellate Division shall certify to him that one or more additional justices are needed for the speedy disposition of the business before it. 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. 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, or to the hearing and decision of 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 county or 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. It shall have power to appoint and remove a reporter.