A Superior Court judge in Newark on Wednesday took away subpoena and investigatory powers from the city's Civilian Complaint Review Board but said it could still conduct oversight of the police department.

Mayor Ras Baraka called Judge Donald Kessler's oral decision "a setback to criminal justice reform in America and to the critical need for citizens to have complete trust that incidents of police misconduct will be dealt with fairly, appropriately and impartially."

"For now, our CCRB will continue to move forward using its power of oversight, but Newark will appeal the court's decision," the mayor said in a statement.

The board was conceived following a damning report released by the U.S. Department of Justice in July 2014 that found Newark police failed to provide sufficient constitutional reason for about 75 percent of pedestrian stops and that despite hundreds of citizen complaints from 2007 to 2012, just one complaint of excessive force was sustained.

It was designed to provide additional civilian oversight of a beleaguered police department that federal investigators found routinely engaged in acts of excessive force and violations of residents' constitutional rights.

The creation of the 11-member board to review police misconduct allegations was met with resistance from police unions.

The Fraternal Order of Police challenged the civilian review board's subpoena powers in court, arguing it violated state statute, an officer's due process rights and the attorney general guidelines.

The unions later obtained an injunction in December 2016 to prevent the board from exercising its investigatory power.

Since then the board has largely reviewed changes in police department policies but has not conducted any investigations, a city official said.

The official said Kessler ruled that any investigations by the civilian board would violate due process rights; Newark police already have an internal affairs department to handle such complaints.

The unions argued the board's investigative powers undermine the police department's disciplinary process.

"The FOP has said since day one that the powers given to the proposed CCRB by executive order were far too broad. We are not against reform or transparency, but it has to be within the confines of the law," James Stewart Jr., president of the FOP said in a statement. "We always said we would lay our cards on the table and let a judge decide the issue based on the merits of the case and today he made reference to many of our points in his decision."

The ordinance allowed the civilian board to investigate misconduct and issue disciplinary recommendations to the police director.

Thomas Moriarty may be reached at tmoriarty@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ThomasDMoriarty. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

Karen Yi may be reached at kyi@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @karen_yi or on Facebook.

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