The Text

All judges, justices and surrogates shall receive for their services such compensation as is now or may hereafter be established by or pursuant to law, provided only that such compensation shall not be diminished during their respective terms of office. Except as in this article provided, all judicial officers shall be elected or appointed at such times and in such manner as may he now or hereafter provided by law. No one shall be eligible for election or appointment to the office of judge of the court of appeals, justice of the supreme court, surrogate, or judge of any other court of record unless he be an attorney and counselor at law of this state except that this requirement shall not apply to the office of county judge or surrogate in the county of Hamilton. No judge or justice shall sit in any appellate court in review of a decision made by him or by any court of which he was at the time a sitting member. No person shall hold the office of judge or justice of any court or the office of surrogate longer than until and including the last day of December next after he shall be seventy years of age. The judges of the court of appeals and the justices of the supreme court shall not hold any other public office or trust, except that they shall be eligible to serve as members of a constitutional convention, or as members of a judicial council as now or hereafter constituted. All votes for any such judge or justice for any other than a judicial office or as a member of a constitutional convention, given by the legislature or the people, shall be void. No judicial officer except a justice of the peace, shall receive to his own use any fees or perquisites of office. A judge of the court of appeals, a justice of the supreme court, a judge of the court of claims, a judge of a court of general sessions, a justice of the city court of the city of New York, a justice of the municipal court of the city of New York, and a county judge or surrogate elected or appointed in a county having a population exceeding one hundred and twenty thousand, shall not practice as an attorney or counselor in any court in this state nor act as referee in any action or proceeding or as arbitrator or umpire in any arbitration proceeding. The legislature may impose a similar prohibition upon county judges or surrogates in other counties, and upon special county judges and special surrogates in any county. Neither the attorney general, nor any assistant to, nor deputy of the attorney general regularly employed as such, nor any district attorney or assistant to or deputy of a district attorney shall, except in the performance of his official duties, appear or act as attorney or counsel for the defendant in any criminal case or proceeding in any court of the state, nor shall any county judge, special county judge, judge of a children’s court, surrogate, or special surrogate appear or act as counsel for a, defendant in any criminal case or proceeding pending in his own county or in any adjacent county.