It is certainly possible, but it depends on what sort of person you\'re talking about. Apparently, the person must usually have been appointed the position.

Your expression \"to retire a judge\" draws over 100 Google hits:

http://www.google.de/search?q="retire a judge"&ie=UTF8&oe=UT...

\"to retire a minister\" : zero hits
\"to retire a lawyer : zero hits\"
\"to retire a doctor\" : four hits including:

www.doh.gov.uk/pub/docs/doh/consultation.pdf

\"to retire a public servant\" three plausible hits:

http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&q="retire ...

\"to retire a public official\" : zero hits
\"to retire an officer\" : 70 mostly military pertinent hits:

http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&q="retire ...

\"to retire a corporate officer\" : zero hits

\"to retire a military officer\" : zero hits

\"to retire a cabinet minister\" : zero hits

\"to retire a cabinet secretary\" : zero hits

\"to retire a sheriff\" : zero hits

\"to retire a police officer\" : 12 hits:

http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&q="retire ...

\"to retire a congressman\" was used at least once by Robert Henry:

http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/libr/r/o/robhenry/robot.htm.ht...

but that may not be a particularly trustworthy source.

NODE – The New Oxford Dictionary of English shows \"retire\" with a person as the object: \"the Home Office retired him.\"

Merriam-Webster\'s Collegiate® Dictionary shows \"to cause to retire from one\'s position or occupation\".

HTH

Dan


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Note added at 2002-06-11 20:01:47 (GMT)
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First point: Sorry, I didn\'t pay enough attention to your short original context sentence \"...when he retires.\" I should have tried to clear that up. If a person has been retired or is to be retired, this means his superiors have decided they don\'t want her/him in that position any longer. Usually the person is nearing retirement age anyway. A 30-year-old person has probably never been retired. In my opinion, at that moment when a person is retired (passive) by his superiors, s/he also retires (active).

Second point: I should have not agreed so quickly and completely with Victoria because a person (subject) CAN theoretically retire another person (object). It is a combination of active voice AND a person as subject that means the retiring is voluntary (or at least when the person has reached retirement age) or s/he is voluntarily throwing somebody else out.

1. \"John is retiring tomorrow.\" means John wants to retire or has reached retirement age.

2. \"John is retiring Bill tomorrow\" means John is voluntarily throwing Bill out tomorrow.

The person, John, is the subject of both active sentences.

If the sentences are passive:

3. \"John is being retired tomorrow.\" means John does not want to retire and has probably not yet reached retirement age. He will have to retire tomorrow though.

4. \"Bill is being retired by John tomorrow\" still means John is voluntarily throwing Bill out tomorrow, just like sentence 2.

John is the subject of sentence 3 and Bill is the subject of sentence 4.

Whew!

Thrid point: There was a typo in the sentence:

\"Apparently, the person must usually have been appointed the position.\"

it should have read:

Apparently, the person must usually have been appointed to the position.

Dan