The idea that judges shouldn’t be elected is deeply rooted in the reactionary ideology of an aristocracy that believed the masses shouldn’t be trusted with any decisions that actually matter and should be regarded with suspicion instead of trusted with decisions.
Judges shouldnt be elected for the same reasons surgeons shouldnt be elected.
This logic can be applied to lawmakers too.
What’s the difference?
Legislators are there to directly reflect the opinions and interests of their constituents, judges are there to have expert knowledge of the law and how it applies to each case uniquely. The first needs some form of democratic mechanism to ensure that they represent people’s current opinions, the later needs a meritocratic mechanism to ensure they are experts in the correct fields.
If judges were the only element of a court I would agree that it would be problematic to have no democratic input, but in common law systems at least that element is represented by juries who are the most powerful element of a court case as they are unchallengable arbiters of fact and drawn through sortition which is even more democratic than election.
This is ideology. There’s no material mechanism to actually ensure judges are experts or have merit. They’re just picked by politicians, who themselves are selected democratically rather than by merit.
This just cuts out the middlemen. If the selection process is unable to select for merit, then it might as well be democratic.
The UK has an independent Judicial Appointments Commission.
Which can be overruled by an elected official but generally is directed to pick on merit and allowed to do so.
Allowing professionals to pick experts and only stepping in when there is a problem is much better to me than direct elections which quickly become partisan and obstructive to professional candidates.
All it takes is getting a few panel members with an ideological axe to grind and suddenly the selection process for judges and the JAC panel itself becomes politicized in that particular direction.
But furthermore, the very framework of law is political. You can’t actually non-politically adjudicate disputes or reviews or appointments or dismissals, there are always political underpinnings and ideological assumptions embedded within the process. The very fact that they currently “particularly welcome applications from ethnic minority candidates and Welsh speakers” is political, and acknowledges that it is political and ideological and not truly objective.
Law isn’t math.
An attempt to be representative is not equal to being “political”.
It’s actually a strength of the system that minorities get some representation rather than being always voted into zero representatives. And they still have to pass the standards to be considered as experts in the field.
No system is perfect, but look at America. Small area elections for judges produce poor corrupt picks. Large area elections produce partisan fights with extremists campaigning against each other.
There’s no country which is a good advert for directly electing judges.
I’m sure as hell I’d want to choose between surgeons. For example, I’d easily choose the one not trafficking organs.
Yeah but have you seen what the masses choose sometimes?
This is probably the worst option. Judges should be professional and not populists pandering to the public.
Literally reactionary.
This ideology is what lead to the US having a fascist Court.
What? Democratically appointed judges? That’s amazing , wonder why the US hasn’t thought of this? Ohh right that’s because we give way too much power to the one in office. This is great for Mexico now the US needs to do this.
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Mejor dicho, imposible. Yo aún tenía la esperanza de que la Suprema Corte de Justicia pudiera bloquear la reforma, pero está cañón con todo el arrastre que tiene M0rena.
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So they should only pander to the political class? That seems great…
Interesting. If judges are going to be political regardless, I don’t see another option for democracies.
Strong and diverse press, strong and enforced rules against politically motivated decisions. A judge should know that, if they don’t strictly follow the law, they’ll lose their job. This won’t make the thing perfect, but far better than officially political judges.
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So how would the judges be appointed under this system and why is it better than having them chosen from the people?
By competition and diploma. A judge is a legal technician. Why elect him on political bases? We do not elect an engineer on political criteria, we take the one who seems the best among the candidates.
If the current system hasn’t prevented political influence, then the method of choosing obviously isn’t guaranteeing unbiased judges anyway, so what’s the point in keeping it as opposed to elected judges?
What’s the point to elect them?
There are plenty of lawyers prepared to be judges in Mexico, competition and diplomas are gonna be a part of the process. Corrupt judges do have titles and diplomas after all. The democratic element is to complete a pre-selection made by the Congress, the Executive and the Judicial powers, at least for magistrates and the Supreme Court.
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What is fascist about the current government? Oh, you are just plainly lying.
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You seem quite competent in researching from Wikipedia. Could you point me to the part of the article mentioning how fascism is related to women feminist presidents with a PhD, democratically and legtimately elected with a remarkable progressive agenda?
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There is no such thing as an apolitical judge. The judges you see as apolitical are just centrists supporting the status quo, but that is not actually an apolitical frame of action.
The very same reaction to the amend shows how urgent it is to to change the judicial system. I’m glad this was done and I can’t wait to vote corrupt judges out of office.
