Sandra Day O'Connor urges legislative restraint at a Morrison Institute panel on merit selection of judges, Feb. 22, 2011.

Today, the Arizona Republic published an editorial that echoes what Chief Justice Rebecca White Berch has told the Legislature about the judicial merit-selection system: It’s not broken, so why are you tinkering with it?

(The same message has been made by others, including retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, at a panel discussion we covered here.)

More specifically, the editorial offered a defense of the State Bar’s role in that process. As it points out, the Bar does not select judges in the state. But it plays a role in selecting lawyers to sit on judicial nominating commissions—where those lawyers sit as a minority alongside members of the public.

Recommendations arising from those commissions then go to the governor, who selects judges to sit on the Arizona Supreme Court, Courts of Appeal, and Superior Courts in Maricopa and Pima counties.

Despite an unfortunate typo, I’m sure the State Bar leadership appreciates the Republic’s touting State Bar involvement, which “ensures the commissions will include lawyers deemed competent by fallow lawyers.”

(Fallow, of course, can mean “undeveloped or inactive, but potentially useful.” For the record, those are not the kinds of lawyers the Bar strives to appoint.)

Read the complete editorial here.