Good on the B.C. government and Justice John Savage for finding that more pay hikes for provincial court judges are unfair and unreasonable. These judges had raises virtually every year from 1997 through 2010, topping out at $234,000 – second most in Canada.

But like every provincial employee, judges’ wages needed to be held to give taxpayers a much-needed break. (See an op-ed we wrote on this in 2011.)

From the Vancouver Sun:

Provincial court judges earning $234,000 a year have been told by the B.C. Supreme Court to share the economic pain.

Justice John Savage said Monday that Victoria’s recent rejection of pay hikes for the roughly 150-member bench as “unfair and unreasonable” was justified.

In a 65-page decision, he said the most prominent rationale throughout the government’s arguments last year was that the economic climate in B.C. had worsened since the forecast on which the 2010 judicial remuneration package was based.

“The theme here is one of temporary austerity in which members of the judiciary share some of the burdens of an adverse economic climate during the years in question, after receiving significant increases in prior years,” Savage wrote. “The constitutional guarantee of a minimum acceptable level of judicial remuneration does not shield judges from sharing the burden of difficult economic times, to limit increases.”

Savage cited evidence that salaries for provincial judges have risen from $161,250 per year in 2004 to $234,600 in 2013, a cumulative increase of 45 per cent over the past decade.