Most important vow for justices of peace is the one to get key details right On June 19, 2018 the Boston Globe ran a story saying that JPs aren’t getting calls for weddings because couples are having friends and family members officiate using the state’s One-Day Solemnizer rule. JPus was concerned about this, as it mischaracterized the important legal (and professional) role that JPs have, and failed to mention all of the problems that ensue from a lay-officiant. The Boston Globe published JPus’ letter to the editor on July 9, 2018, and we’ve been in discussions with the reporter for the original piece. She has been receptive to our concerns and is working with her editor on a follow-up story. JPus Responds: To the Editor, Boston Globe The article “ ‘We are gathered here today?’ For justices of peace, trend is no.” (Page A1, June 19) missed the mark. It focused on friends and family replacing ...
The DL on JPs Posted on September 29, 2009 | 3 Comments There are no qualifications for being named a Justice of the Peace. Nor do you have to pay a fee to become a JP. It’s the perfect job, laughs Saul Haffner. The retired Westporter should know. He’s a JP himself — and perhaps the country’s foremost expert on that unique position. “In the beginning of time,” Saul says — back when he worked for the Congregation of Humanistic Judaism, not 1362 (the first time time “Justice of the Peace” appeared in English law) — he fielded calls from couples looking for rabbis to perform interfaith weddings. They were hard to find — so Saul vowed that when he retired, he would become a JP and do those ceremonies. Fun fact: Every Connecticut town is allocated a certain number of JPs, based on the number of registered voters. Westport has 60 — ...
Justices Welcome Same-Sex Marriages Saturday, October 25, 2008 By: Jennifer Sprague DURHAM - Justices of the peace from throughout the state weighed in on the issue of same-sex marriage Saturday at their annual conference, held at Durham Town Hall. Although town clerks were told by the state's Department of Public Health that Tuesday is the official release date of the court's gay-marriage decision, Ben Klein, attorney for the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, said Oct. 10 same-sex couples will not be able to wed until mid-November. Regardless of the effective date, town clerks have not been told when the forms will be available or if and how civil unions will be transferred to marriages. "The only thing we learned is same-sex couples can now get married," said Kim Garvis, town clerk in Durham. On the day the Connecticut Supreme Court overturned the ban on gay marriage, Garvis said Durham, ...
For civil unions, justices of the peace can say 'I won't' JPus member Sonia Osuna has performed many civil unions since they became legal in October 2005. Saul Haffner, President of JPus, does them too. But not all JPs do. The state of Connecticut allows JPs to decline to officiate if they are not comfortable with the same-sex ceremony. Read article here.
The Complications of Performing Marriages Sloan Brewster. Published 12:00 am EDT, Saturday, October 27, 2007 HADDAM - For a Justice of the Peace the first interview with a couple can resemble an audition. "When they come to your house, you're not interviewing them," Eleanor Tomazewski a Middletown JP said to a captive audience. "You're on audition; they're interviewing you." Tomazewski, who is 78 shared some tidbits of her 20 years as a JP with about 30 of her fellows at the Annual Conference for the Justices of the Peace at the Haddam Firehouse Saturday. The moral of her tales was simple, have a "thick skin," she said. "I really pulled some real boners when I was first learning," Tomazewski said to the laughing listeners. JPs can perform weddings, take legal depositions and sometimes are notarize documents, said Saul Haffner of Westport. There are approximately 6,000 JPs in Connecticut, Haffner estimated. All of them ...
