High court helps do-it-yourselfers

Hoosiers have a welcome opportunity beginning today to learn more about the state’s judicial system, particularly what citizens will face if they choose to represent themselves in court.

The Indiana Supreme Court partnered with the state’s Public Broadcasting System’s TV stations to produce “Family Matters: Choosing to Represent Yourself in Court.”

“There are common questions about moving forward with a case without an attorney, and there are some risks involved,” Chief Justice Randall Shepard said. “There are frequent deadlines and requirements for courtroom behavior. The Family Matters program provides clear information and answers to those questions.”

PBS39 will air the program at 6 p.m. today on digital channel 39-4, which is Comcast 243 and Frontier FiOS 473.

The show is among a series of programs that represent the state Supreme Court’s ongoing efforts to help citizens better understand the judicial system.

Pick a letter …

Like the federal government and many other states, Indiana has an alphabet soup of agencies – consider IDEM, the DNR, the AG’s office and others. Few of the relationships among the various offices are confusing as that of the OUCC and the IURC.

The OUCC is the Office of Utility Consumer Counselor, the state agency that by law is designated to represent the public in utility rate cases, which are highly complex. The office has a 50-person staff that enables the office to serve, as its Web site explains, “as the consumers’ legal and technical representative.” It can raise objections to and make recommendations about utility rates, but it doesn’t have the final say.

The office’s recommendations go to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, a separate agency with an appointed board that makes the decisions on utility rates. The IURC commissioners can, essentially, put as much or as little weight on the recommendations from the other agency as they want. But the consumer counselor’s staff at least has the resources to raise the right questions and point out discrepancies in the highly technical applications for rate increases.

The consumer counselor’s recommendation this week that Aqua Indiana’s rate hike be substantially lower than what the water and sewer utility is seeking is not the final word, but it does serve to help consumers. Considering that the powerful state Senate leader David Long has also opposed the increase, this week’s recommendation will further increase the chances that Aqua Indiana will get substantially less than it wants.