Who judges the judges?

California’s courtrooms may be open to the public, but there’s no openness when it comes to disciplinary complaints against judges. The Commission on Judicial Performance insists that its oversight work be kept secret and untouchable.

It’s an indefensible stance, but it’s working so far. A state-ordered audit is seeking a look at the commission’s private world, but the judicial agency won a first-round victory — from a judge, no less — in blocking the outside inquiry.

All the expected arguments are working: The agency needs privacy, it’s unfair to open the books on sketchy complaints and the commission’s founding rules bar a peek at the books. But that shouldn’t satisfy the public or Sacramento legislators who authorized an examination of how an important disciplinary agency does its job.

After legislators asked for an examination last year, the task was given to state Auditor Elaine Howle. But her team ran into a roadblock when the agency refused to cooperate and filed suit to block the audit. This week, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Suzanne Ramos Bolanos sided with the commission, saying certain records can remain secret.

Howle is expected to appeal, which she should. Locking the file cabinets during an audit makes such work pointless. Without a full range of information, there can’t be an effective read of whether a watchdog agency is vigilant or toothless and its operation efficient or wasteful. Howle won’t be able to open hundreds of complaints collected yearly to the public, a prime worry of the oversight agency.

The commission isn’t budging. Set up in 1960, it’s equipped with the weighty power of firing a judge who shames the profession. In rare cases, it makes matters public, but it also issues private reprimands that no one but the targeted judge sees. Its caseload, pace of work and operations are largely kept quiet. Complainants and the public have little to go on in measuring the commission’s record in policing California’s 2,000 judges.

The legal setback isn’t going down well in the Legislature. State Sen. HannahBeth Jackson, a Santa Barbara Democrat who heads her chamber’s Judiciary Committee, is pressing the commission to cooperate. The agency is taxpayerfunded and should cooperate with its first audit, she said.

The commission’s worth is at stake. It should cooperate with, not obstruct, a needed audit.