AN ACT to amend and reenact §51-2-1 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended; and to amend said code by adding thereto a new section, designated §51-3-18, all relating generally to the appointment of judges and magistrates to fill vacancies; providing for an additional circuit court judge to be appointed to the twenty-third judicial circuit; and providing for the expeditious filling of judicial vacancies by limiting the time during which a challenge to an appointment may be instituted.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §51-2-1 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, be amended and reenacted; and that said code be amended by adding thereto a new section, designated §51-3-18, all to read as follows:

ARTICLE 2. CIRCUIT COURTS; CIRCUIT JUDGES.

§51-2-1. Judicial circuits; terms of office; legislative findings and declarations; elections; terms of court.

(a) The state shall be divided into the following judicial circuits with the following number of judges:
The counties of Brooke, Hancock and Ohio shall constitute the first circuit and shall have four judges; the counties of Marshall, Tyler and Wetzel shall constitute the second circuit and shall have two judges; the counties of Doddridge, Pleasants and Ritchie shall constitute the third circuit and shall have one judge; the counties of Wood and Wirt shall constitute the fourth circuit and shall have three judges; the counties of Calhoun, Jackson, Mason and Roane shall constitute the fifth circuit and shall have two judges; the county of Cabell shall constitute the sixth circuit and shall have four judges; the county of Logan shall constitute the seventh circuit and shall have two judges; the county of McDowell shall constitute the eighth circuit and shall have two judges; the county of Mercer shall constitute the ninth circuit and shall have two judges; the county of Raleigh shall constitute the tenth circuit and shall have three judges; the counties of Greenbrier and Pocahontas shall constitute the eleventh circuit and shall have two judges; the county of Fayette shall constitute the twelfth circuit and shall have two judges; the county of Kanawha shall constitute the thirteenth circuit and shall have seven judges; the counties of Braxton, Clay, Gilmer and Webster shall constitute the fourteenth circuit and shall have two judges; the county of Harrison shall constitute the fifteenth circuit and shall have three judges; the county of Marion shall constitute the sixteenth circuit and shall have two judges; the county of Monongalia shall constitute the seventeenth circuit and shall have two judges; the county of Preston shall constitute the eighteenth circuit and shall have one judge; the counties of Barbour and Taylor shall constitute the nineteenth circuit and shall have one judge; the county of Randolph shall constitute the twentieth circuit and shall have one judge; the counties of Grant, Mineral and Tucker shall constitute the twenty-first circuit and shall have two judges; the counties of Hampshire, Hardy and Pendleton shall constitute the twenty-second circuit and shall have one judge; the counties of Berkeley, Jefferson and Morgan shall constitute the twenty-third circuit and shall have four judges: Provided, That effective the first day of August, two thousand six, said circuit shall have five judges; the county of Wayne shall constitute the twenty-fourth circuit and shall have one judge; the counties of Lincoln and Boone shall constitute the twenty-fifth circuit and shall have two judges; the counties of Lewis and Upshur shall constitute the twenty-sixth circuit and shall have one judge; the county of Wyoming shall constitute the twenty-seventh circuit and shall have one judge; the county of Nicholas shall constitute the twenty-eighth circuit and shall have one judge; the county of Putnam shall constitute the twenty-ninth circuit and shall have two judges; the county of Mingo shall constitute the thirtieth circuit and shall have one judge; and the counties of Monroe and Summers shall constitute the thirty-first circuit and shall have one judge: Provided, That the Kanawha County circuit court shall be a court of concurrent jurisdiction with each single judge circuit where the sitting judge in such single judge circuit is unavailable by reason of sickness, vacation or other reason.
(b) Any judge in office on the effective date of the reenactment of this section shall continue as a judge of the circuit as constituted under prior enactments of this section, unless sooner removed or retired as provided by law, until the thirty-first day of December, two thousand.
(c) The term of office of all circuit court judges shall be for eight years. The term of office for all circuit court judges elected during the general election conducted in the year two thousand shall commence on the first day of January, two thousand one, and end on the thirty-first day of December, two thousand eight.
(d) Beginning with the primary and general elections to be conducted in the year one thousand nine hundred ninety-two, in all judicial circuits having two or more judges there shall be, for election purposes, numbered divisions corresponding to the number of circuit judges in each circuit. Each judge shall be elected at large from the entire circuit. In each numbered division of a judicial circuit, the candidates for nomination or election shall be voted upon and the votes cast for the candidates in each division shall be tallied separately from the votes cast for candidates in other numbered divisions within the circuit. The candidate receiving the highest number of the votes cast within a numbered division shall be nominated or elected, as the case may be: Provided, That beginning with the primary and general elections to be conducted in the year two thousand, judges serving a judicial circuit comprised of four or more counties with two or more judges shall not be residents of the same county.
(e) The Supreme Court of Appeals shall, by rule, establish the terms of court of circuit judges.
ARTICLE 3. COURTS IN GENERAL.
§51-3-18. Expeditious filling of judicial vacancies.
(a) The Legislature finds that when judicial offices created under the constitution and laws of the state are vacant for extended periods of time, the proper functioning of the judicial branch of the government is impeded. The Legislature further finds that when a vacancy in a judicial office is to be filled by appointment, it is in the public interest that any questions regarding the qualifications or eligibility of the person nominated or appointed to fill the vacancy be determined expeditiously.
(b) When, pursuant to the provisions of section seven, article VIII of the Constitution of West Virginia, the Governor appoints a person to fill a vacancy in the office of Justice of the Supreme Court of Appeals or in the office of judge of the circuit court, no suit or action challenging the qualifications or eligibility of the person so appointed, if it be based upon any fact or circumstance in existence at the time of the appointment, will be cognizable in any court of this state unless it be brought within twenty days after the appointment by the Governor.
(c) When, pursuant to the provisions of section ten, article VIII of the Constitution of West Virginia and the general laws adopted thereunder, a person is appointed to fill a vacancy in the office of magistrate, no suit or action challenging the qualifications or eligibility of the person so appointed, if it be based upon any fact or circumstance in existence at the time of the appointment, will be cognizable in any court of this state unless it be brought within twenty days after the appointment.
(d) When, pursuant to the provisions of section sixteen, article VIII of the Constitution of West Virginia, the Governor appoints a person to fill a vacancy in the office of judge of the family court, no suit or action challenging the qualifications or eligibility of the person so appointed, if it be based upon any fact or circumstance in existence at the time of the appointment, will be cognizable in any court of this state unless it be brought within twenty days after the appointment by the Governor.
(e) Following a judicial appointment, if no suit or action is commenced within the time specified above, or if, in a suit having been timely brought, it is finally adjudged that the appointee is qualified and eligible to hold the office to which he or she has been appointed, then the appointee may take the oath of office and thereafter execute the office for the unexpired term to which he or she has been appointed, subject to removal under section eight, article VIII of the Constitution of West Virginia, in the case of a Justice of the Supreme Court of Appeals, the circuit court or the family court, only by impeachment, and in the case of a magistrate, in the manner provided by general law for removal of a magistrate.
(f) An action timely brought to challenge the qualifications or eligibility of an appointee to judicial office shall be given priority over all other actions on the docket of the court in which the action is brought.
(g) Nothing contained in this section is intended by the Legislature to interfere with the authority of the Supreme Court of Appeals to discipline or retire judges or magistrates as that authority is set forth in the Constitution of West Virginia and in rules adopted by the Supreme Court of Appeals pursuant to the Constitution of West Virginia.
(h) The Legislature declares that the offices of magistrate, judge of the family court, judge of the circuit court and Justice of the Supreme Court of Appeals are elective in nature and are all "offices to be filled by election by the people" within the meaning of the exceptions clause of section fifteen, article VI of the Constitution of West Virginia, which clause describes the kind and character of the offices thereby removed from the operation of the prohibitory clause and not the method by which the offices are to be filled.