Top Court Justice From Bernards Won't be Renominated

A Supreme Court justice from Bernards Township has fallen victim to a squabble between the governor and Senate Democrats.

Helen Hoens will not be renominated to the top court after Democrats made clear to Gov. Chris Christie that she would likely not have received tenure, nj.com reports.

Instead, the governor nominated Judge Faustino J. Fernandez-Vina, a Camden County Superior Court assignment judge, to replace Hoens, who took her seat in 2006.

Hoens “took the news like a complete professional,” Christie said at a Statehouse news conference.

"I thanked her for her seven years of outstanding service on the New Jersey Supreme Court," Christie said. 

"And I told her that I was sorry that because of the conduct of people like (Sen.) Ray Lesniak and others, that she was not going to be able to serve if she so chose until her retirement age at 70."

Hoens said, “I am of course saddened that I will not be able to continue in this extraordinary professional calling, but I am thankful beyond words for this great privilege and honor of having been able to serve the people of this great state as a justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court,” app.com reported.

Two of Christie’s nominations to the Supreme Court were rejected by the Democrat-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee last year, which was widely seen as retribution for the governor’s then-unprecedented decision in 2010 to not renominate Justice John Wallace.