Matter of Alamance County Ct. Facilities

EXUM, Chief Justice.

Initiated by a hearing ordered by a superior court judge to inquire into the adequacy of the Alamance County court facilities, this case probes the scope of the court’s inherent power to direct county commissioners to ameliorate such facilities and the proper means of effecting that end. We hold that such power exists, but that the order invoking it here is procedurally and substantively flawed: the commissioners against whom the order was directed were not made parties to the action, the order was ex parte, and it intruded on discretion that properly belonged to the…