By Dave Davis
For Variety

THERE have been some recent developments in the taxpayer lawsuit challenging Judge Barcinas’ COLA ruling, but not all are common knowledge, and not all were the right things at the right time.
Several weeks ago, Judge Barcinas set an April 20 hearing date for a motion to intervene filed by six Guam taxpayers, who moved to set aside the judgment and all orders entered by Judge Barcinas through disqualification based on conflict of interest. The cited conflict has to do with nearly $200,000 payable to the judge’s parents under his highly controversial ruling.
Now comes the interesting part, about what has and hasn’t happened in the interim. Guam law requires that upon the filing of such disqualification motion, the presiding judge of the Superior Court must, within five days, assign another judge to determine the qualification issue. That never happened.
An Objection to Competency notice was then served on Judge Barcinas on March 12. Guam law requires that the served judge respond within 10 days, or the matter is to be referred to another judge of the Superior Court. That didn’t happen, either. Instead, Judge Barcinas decided that he, himself, would hear the motion to intervene, and disallowed the Objection to Competency on grounds that the parties to the lawsuit lack standing to object to his competency. Guam law and ample legal precedent prohibit such rulings.
In the interest of brevity, suffice it to say that Judge Barcinas has taken it upon himself to rule in his own favor on a matter in which he cannot legally do so. To quote an opinion of the appellate court in a strikingly similar case: “It is important … not only that the integrity and fairness of the judiciary be maintained, but also that the business of the courts be conducted in such a manner as will avoid suspicion of unfairness.”
Judge Barcinas would attempt, by his own order, to put himself in the position where he can, by denying the motion to intervene, prevent the question of his conflict from ever being raised, and thus prevent the conflicted judgment he has already entered from ever being challenged. Isn’t that interesting?
Accustomed as we are to such attempts at damage control and deflection of responsibility by local politicians, we are nevertheless appalled to find it practiced by the judiciary as well.
What happens next? Well, the plaintiffs have filed a petition with the Supreme Court of Guam to prohibit Judge Barcinas from participating in any way in further proceedings in the COLA case and asking that, at the very least, the issue of Judge Barcinas’ qualification be determined by another judge.
Now we wait and watch, to see how the justices handle this issue involving one of their own.