Sec. 9938a.

(1) Effective January 1, 2004, the district court shall commence to function in the thirty-eighth district and, as of that date, the municipal court within that district is abolished. The terms of the incumbent municipal judges in Eastpointe shall expire at 12 midnight on December 31, 2003. The judgeship in the thirty-eighth district of the district court, as authorized under section 8122(2), shall be filled in a special election held in November 2003, in conjunction with the November 2003 Eastpointe municipal election, in the manner provided by law. For purposes of the November 2003 special election only, the term of the candidate for district judge in the thirty-eighth district who receives the highest number of votes shall be 5 years.

(2) All causes of action transferred to the thirty-eighth district court pursuant to section 9924(1) shall be as valid and subsisting as they were in the municipal court from which they were transferred. All orders and judgments entered before January 1, 2004 in the municipal court abolished pursuant to subsection (1) are appealable in like manner and to the same courts as applicable before that date.

(3) Subsections (1) and (2) do not apply, and any district judgeship proposed for the thirty-eighth district is not authorized or filled by election, unless the city of Eastpointe, by resolution adopted by its governing body, approves the establishment of the district court in the thirty-eighth district and the district judgeship proposed for the thirty-eighth district and unless the clerk of the city of Eastpointe files a copy of the resolution with the secretary of state not earlier than the effective date of this section and not later than 4 p.m. April 12, 2003. Upon receiving a copy of the resolution, the secretary of state shall immediately notify the state court administrator with respect to the establishment of the district court in the thirty-eighth district and the district judgeship authorized for the thirty-eighth district.

(4) By enacting this section, the legislature is not mandating that the district court function in the thirty-eighth district and is not mandating any judgeship in the district. If the city of Eastpointe, acting through its governing body, approves the establishment of the district court in the thirty-eighth district and any district judgeship proposed by law for that district, that approval constitutes an exercise of that city's option to provide a new activity or service or to increase the level of activity or service offered in the city beyond that required by existing law, as the elements of that option are defined by 1979 PA 101, MCL 21.231 to 21.244, and a voluntary acceptance by the city of all expenses and capital improvements which may result from the establishment of the district court in the thirty-eighth district and any judgeship. However, the exercise of the option does not affect the state's obligation to pay a portion of any district judge's salary as provided by law, or to appropriate and disburse funds to the city or incorporated village for the necessary costs of state requirements established by a state law that becomes effective on or after December 23, 1978.

History: Add. 2002, Act 681, Imd. Eff. Dec. 30, 2002