what seems silly about electing these officials, is that it shouldn't be a popularity contest. It should be a matter of competence, and compliance with rules. What good are laws whose effects depends on the mood of voters or the whims of the enforcer?
It's not great to have lawyers appoint other lawyers. You end up with an in-group. But that kind of system does seem to give you law whose effects are fairly predictable, at least. But you have to explain how the topmost lawyers get appointed, the ones who appoint other lawyers.
The US Supreme Court seems to be nominated by the Pres, and then confirmed by the Senate, which is full of lawyers. So the USSC seems to be appointed, by their juniors.
Hmmm. I wondered how UKSC justices are appointed; it's rather good.
A commission is formed, consisting of the president of the court, another senior judge who is not on the UKSC, and a member of the Judicial Appointments Commission. At least one of them must not be a lawyer. The commission is set up by the Minister of Justice, who apparently can overrule them. The PM and the Queen both have a final veto.
Appointment to senior judicial roles in the UK is done through a process that's kept at quite some distance from politics precisely because people aren't keen on having SCOTUS-style politicking. It isn't perfect, but it is a hell of a lot better.
(The JAC handles judicial appointments for England and Wales. There are JAC equivalents for Scotland and Northern Ireland. When there's a Supreme Court vacancy, a process starts up where members of the three JACs appoint people to a committee to recommend new SC justices.)
There are Supreme Court justices in the UK who have discernible political views (the retired Lady Hale was left of the average, and the retired Lord Sumption is more to the right) but their political affiliation has a comparatively small role in deciding whether they get a senior judicial appointment.
Nobody talks about justices having been appointed by a particular prime minister, for instance, because it is irrelevant. Nor does their political affiliation give you much of a clue how they are going to decide cases. This is also because in most cases, the Supreme Court sits as panels—unlike in the US, most cases are decided by a panel of five of the twelve judges, usually picked based on subject matter expertise (those with, say, family law experience will get picked for family cases, while those with more commercial experience are likely to be picked for commercial or financial disputes).
The politics of appointments in the UK is less obvious than that of the US, but it is there. The Secretary of State for Justice, a member of the cabinet appointed by the PM, has veto power over appointments to the UK Supreme Court.
The question of how court officials should be appointed seems to me rather fraught.
Direct appointment by the executive? Um, US Supreme Court.
Popular election? Do you want to be judged by someone running for election?
Judicial Appointments Commission? This is the system used in the UK; the Commission recommends, and then some senior lawyer, often a cabinet minister, decides. That's pretty close to appointment by the executive.
I'm not in favour of putting foxes in charge of chicken-coop security.
[Edit] I didn't really mean it to be sarcastic (i.e. cutting flesh). I was just trying to show where that reasoning leads.
It isn't a binary choice between politicians choosing judges, and elections for judges. Both these approaches have the effect of politicising the matter. In England, the legal system has its own (somewhat arcane) solution for appointing judges.
Personally I strongly favour this approach. Judges should not be overtly political, and the process for their appointment should be closer to the way we certify doctors than to the way we choose politicians.
The English system doesn't provide an ironclad guarantee against political meddling, but there's always a tradeoff there: we want both accountability and independence, and these are opposing. (Also, I'm English, for what that's worth.)
In England and Wales there is a separate commission made up of judicial, professional and lay members that selects judges - it most certainly not left up to politicians:
The category of 'appointment' contains many different methods, some of which may be better than the US system.
One method that I've heard of is to have a committee (/"commission"/"council") select judges. The committee composition can draw from multiple branches of government (e.g. some members are existing judges and others are appointed/elected by the executive and/or legislative branches) and from civil society (e.g. appointed/elected by bar associations; in some implementations a majority of the committee is from civil society). The terms of members of the committee can be staggered.
The idea is to make it difficult for any one controversial person or party or movement to consistently dominate the committee, because in order to do so they would need to consistently dominate multiple branches of government and civil society (because the different members of the committee are selected by these different institutions) over a long period of time (because of the staggered terms).
>The idea that 5 out 9 people nominating judges aren't elected, directly or indirectly, is AFAIK a fairly unique Israeli invention.
Judges in England and Wales (including supreme court judges) are selected entirely by unelected officials; The government is explicitly prohibited from interfering with their decision. Given the influential nature of English law, I would be very surprised if this was unique.
Appointees have to win their place by an established career of honest and forthright legal practice.
Your question is like asking is it better to appoint rocket scientist from a pool of professors of rocket science, via a skill based appointment system, or via a popularity competition that the public vote on.
It's a council of 9 justices who vote on final decisions. They are appointed by politicians who the people vote for. This is intentional, for the same reason that the Senate wasn't meant to be directly voted for by normal citizens either: normal citizens usually don't have the political involvement necessary to make educated decisions about who to appoint the position. In theory, at least.
It's a balance between politicians playing the circlejerk game to help each other with their misdeeds, and average joes voting for imbeciles.
They're "supposed to" be appointed. This is the way it used to be and the way it constitutionally has to be at the federal level. But I think more than half of states have elected judges.
True, they often run unopposed, but that doesn't free then from political pressure; if they make an unpopular decision, any lawyer could opt to run against them by simply campaigning as not the other judge. They would usually win and get a fantastic résumé boost.
Is it true that all US judges are either elected or politically appointed? Both seem like a terrible idea.
I admit I don't know how judges in other countries are appointed, but I think it usually involves a pretty thorough screening process involving several different requirements and organisations.
Ones that aren't elected are appointed. Typically they're appointed because they're related or friends with the elected officials doing the appointing (My dad is a court officer in NY state - he's seen over and over again that nepotism is absolutely the norm and not the exception for all appointed positions). Any merit judges have compared to a baseline lawyer is basically accidental.
Sure, but there are requirements in place to address some of those things. The commission can't be more than half+1 of the same political party, has to include a mix of lawyers and non-lawyers, etc. Compared to blatantly partisan judicial selections in other places, I think this system works pretty well.
I think the supreme Court should be like jury duty. Judges and lawyers with ten years experience get called up for one court case only. All random peers who've passed the bar and met basic requirements.
all other political appointments should be ranked choice or like that parliament system where if x party gets 30 percent of vote they get to appoint 30 percent of the positions.
what seems silly about electing these officials, is that it shouldn't be a popularity contest. It should be a matter of competence, and compliance with rules. What good are laws whose effects depends on the mood of voters or the whims of the enforcer?
It's not great to have lawyers appoint other lawyers. You end up with an in-group. But that kind of system does seem to give you law whose effects are fairly predictable, at least. But you have to explain how the topmost lawyers get appointed, the ones who appoint other lawyers.
The US Supreme Court seems to be nominated by the Pres, and then confirmed by the Senate, which is full of lawyers. So the USSC seems to be appointed, by their juniors.
Hmmm. I wondered how UKSC justices are appointed; it's rather good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_Ki...
A commission is formed, consisting of the president of the court, another senior judge who is not on the UKSC, and a member of the Judicial Appointments Commission. At least one of them must not be a lawyer. The commission is set up by the Minister of Justice, who apparently can overrule them. The PM and the Queen both have a final veto.
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