Moreover, whether or not Cruz is specifically culpable, the court has plainly been engaged in judicial overreach. It ruled that the university must keep toilet paper in its bathrooms, dismissing the university’s argument that the rolls just get stolen; it ruled that San José must eliminate street vendors, overlooking the obvious problem that the vendors just roll up their wares when the police come and then spread them back out when the police leave; and another judge on the Sala IV opined that the traffic law should make distinctions between day and night infractions, as if her legal training qualifies her as an expert on traffic safety. In fact, you have to wonder by what legal authority the court ruled that traffic fines are too high. Is it within the court’s purview to set the amount of traffic fines?

The reality is also that the majority of the Sala IV’s rulings are unenforced and unenforcable. This makes the court a toothless laughing stock. Whether or not the refusal to reappoint Cruz was a good or bad idea, I can’t say, but the legislature should use its constitutional authority to restrain a court that is arrogantly out of control and often plain silly.