McDONALD, J. Among other historical factors, in
the wake of a public outcry following the legislature’s
setting aside of a court’s judgment of conviction in the
prosecution of a defendant for murder in 1815, the people
of the state of Connecticut adopted its first constitution
in 1818 and, relevant to this appeal, created an indepen-
dent judiciary as a coequal branch of government whose
judgments could no longer be reviewed or set aside by
the legislature. See, e.g., State v. Clemente, 166 Conn.
501, 512–13, 353 A.2d 723 (1974). The establishment of
an independent judiciary has served as a cornerstone of
this state’s separation of powers framework ever since
it was first declared in article second of Connecticut’s
1818 constitution.1 More than two centuries later, this
appeal requires us to determine whether it violates the
separation of powers doctrine for the named defendant,
the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities
(commission), Office of Public Hearings,2 an administra-
1
See, e.g., W. Horton, The Connecticut State Constitution (2d Ed.
2012) p. 11 (“Before 1818, separation of powers did not exist in Con-
necticut. The General Assembly was the final source of most power in
the colony and state. . . . The judiciary was strictly subordinate to the
General Assembly. A litigant who was disappointed with a decision of
a judge could go to the General Assembly, which if it so chose could
simply overrule the judge.”); see also, e.g., State v. Clemente, supra,
166 Conn. 507 n.2 (“[a]rticle second of the 1965 constitution is identical
to the corresponding sections of the constitutions of 1818 and 1955”).
2
Both the commission, which acknowledges in its briefing before
this court that it is an agency of the executive branch, and its Office
of Public Hearings, which is the administrative unit of the commis-
sion that includes its human rights referees, are named as defendants
in this administrative appeal. Accordingly, the commission is named
as a defendant in both its prosecutorial and adjudicative capacities
pursuant to General Statutes § 4-183 (c). The commission has filed the
present appeal and its briefs in support of the referee’s ruling in its
prosecutorial capacity. For the sake of simplicity, we refer to both the
commission individually and the commission and its Office of Public
State of Connecticut, Judicial Branch v. Commission on Human Rights &
Opportunities, Office of Public Hearings