HARRISBURG -- More than 1,000 state judges will get to keep their middle-of-the-night pay raises even though the Legislature repealed the judicial raises in November.

In a much-awaited ruling issued yesterday, the state Supreme Court, whose members also will get the higher pay, overruled part of Act 72. That's the measure legislators approved Nov. 16 to cancel the pay raises they had approved earlier last year for themselves, state judges and some members of Gov. Ed Rendell's cabinet.

"We hold that Act 72's repeal of [the pay raises] clearly, palpably and plainly violates ... the state constitution insofar as it reduced the judicial compensation," said Justice Ronald Castille, writing for the five majority members of the court.

A sixth justice, Thomas Saylor, issued a separate opinion, and Chief Justice Ralph Cappy, who had vocally supported the pay raises, didn't take part in the decision.

Judges will get their raises retroactive to November, when the repeal law was passed.

Supreme Court associate justices' salaries will increase to about $171,000, from $155,783, as a result of the ruling. Pay of Common Pleas judges will increase to about $149,000, from $135,293, according to the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts.

The court decision was assailed by members of citizens groups who raised a public outcry against the three-part pay raise law that was enacted without debate just after midnight on July 7, 2005.

Some observers, however, such as University of Pittsburgh law professor John M. Burkoff, called the justices courageous for making an unpopular decision in a politically charged environment.

"We're lucky to have judges to value the law over the polls," Mr. Burkoff said. "These justices aren't fools. They knew this would be a very unpopular decision but they did what the law and the constitution obligates them to do."

Others, though, say the justices acted out of self-interest to preserve their own raises.

"This was a judicial swindle," said Bruce Ledewitz, professor at Duquesne University Law School. "They went out of their way to uphold every other part of the constitutional challenge except the part that would have affected their own pay raises."

Tim Potts, leader of Democracy Rising Pennsylvania, another pay raise critic, was upset that the Supreme Court didn't simply throw out all of Act 44, the July 7 pay raise law.

Mr. Potts contended the entire Act 44 was passed in an unconstitutional fashion -- without public debate and without being considered on three separate occasions before the vote.

He also said it violated the "single subject rule" by pertaining to three subjects -- raises for all three branches -- instead of just one subject, as he said the constitution requires.

"This ruling by the Supreme Court plainly ignores what the constitution says about how a bill should be adopted," he contended.

That's disappointing to Mr. Ledewitz, too.

"This was the opportunity for the court to clean up the way the Legislature passes bills in the middle of the night behind everybody's back in the night," he said. "The shoddy way of passing legislation at the last minute was upheld. [The justices] said that process is OK."

The Legislature approved raises for itself, 1,045 judges and some Rendell cabinet members when it acted in the early morning hours last summer. The bill gave lawmakers raises of 16 percent to 34 percent, and judges raises of 11 percent to 15 percent.

After a four-month public outcry, and the defeat of a Supreme Court justice in a November retention election, the Legislature rescinded the raises for all three branches on Nov. 16.

Some judges from Philadelphia later filed a lawsuit seeking reinstatement of the judicial raises, and the court upheld those raises yesterday.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Lynn Swann also criticized the court decision.

"This is exactly what's wrong with Harrisburg: The Supreme Court upholds its own pay raise," he said. "This is outrageous. Midnight pay raises ... are absolutely unconstitutional."

Citizen watchdogs did applaud one aspect of the decision -- the condemnation of legislators' use of "unvouchered expense" accounts to take higher compensation from July to November 2005 as a way to skirt a prohibition on midterm raises.

That was wrong for legislators to do, the court said, because they cannot increase their pay in mid-term no matter what they call it.

Justice Saylor, in his separate opinion, said the entire pay raise law should have been found unconstitutional because the court said the unvouchered expenses were unconstitutional.

Eric Epstein, leader of a group called Rock the Capital, said the court didn't go far enough because it failed to order legislators who took the higher compensation to pay it back.

"The Supreme Court has said that stealing is bad, but you are allowed to keep the money. We can't be satisfied with just wounding the beast; we have to kill the pay raise monster," Mr. Epstein said.

Mr. Epstein said he's been keeping count of the legislators who took the higher compensation in the form of expenses. Originally 131 House members took the higher pay, which varied from $4,000 to $13,000, depending on a legislator's position.

Since then, he said, 71 House members have returned the higher pay, but 60 have not. Also, nine senators have refused to pay back the unvouchered expenses money. They are Sens. Vincent Hughes, Shirley Kitchen, Mike Stack, Anthony Williams and Christine Targalione, all of the Philadelphia, plus Gerald LaValle of Beaver, Raphael Musto and Charles Lemmond, both of Luzerne, and Robert Mellow of Lackawanna.

Mr. Epstein said that House members who haven't returned the expense money include Frank LaGrotta of Lawrence, Joseph Petrarca of Westmoreland, Ken Ruffing of West Mifflin, Mike Veon of Beaver, Jake Wheatley of the Hill District, House Democratic leader H. William DeWeese of Waynesburg, Chris Sainato of Lawrence, Victor Lescovitz of Washington, Larry Roberts of Fayette and James Shaner of Fayette.

Some of those legislators have donated the money to charity, but it still will serve to increase their pensions when they retire, Mr. Epstein said, so he feels they will improperly benefit.

Political repercussions from the raises already have been more significant than the precedent set by this judicial ruling, said Mr. Burkoff.

"Even if this court had said everything was fine with the raises, and even the unvouchered expenses, politically it's never going to happen again," he said. "The effect of this decision on the Legislature is next to nothing, but the effect on the judiciary is massive."

That's because the decision allows state judges' pay to be tied to increases in federal judges' salaries.

"That's a terrific result for those of us who think that judges have been underpaid," he said. "Now the chief justice won't have to go hat-in-hand to the Legislature begging for money. Rather, the amount of money they get paid will be established in a different way."

Correction/Clarification: (Published Sept. 17, 2006) A story in Sept. 15, 2006 editions on a court decision on judicial and legislative pay raises, said incorrectly that state Rep. Don Walko, D-North Side, had not repaid unvouchered expenses from August to November 2005. Mr. Walko said he made the repayment in May.