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Do you mean that the career of judges is never affected by politics? I think, e.g., that appointments to SCOTUS are an obvious counterexample.
by chalst 6y ago
Do you mean that the career of judges is never affected by politics? I think, e.g., that appointments to SCOTUS are an obvious counterexample.
- rafram 6y agoHow’s the US Supreme Court relevant to whether UK judges are political?
- kjakm 6y agoThe case is being heard in the UK so I'm only talking about the UK. Unlike the US, court appointments in the UK are not political and not for a life long term. Even the public image of a judge as being conservative/liberal is not something really seen here.
- chalst 6y agoThe 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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_Kingdom#Appointment_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_Ki...
- kjakm 6y agoGood point although I think that mechanism is rarely used and highly scrutinised when it is. The government has lost several high profile court cases in the last few years which I doubt would happen in a more politicised system.
- lawtalkinghuman 6y agoAppointment 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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Appointments_Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Appointments_Commissi... (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).
- chalst 6y agoThanks, that was an interesting summary. I don't think the involvement of parliament necessarily causes polarisation: Germany has a quite similar system to the US, the most relevant difference being that the election is by secret ballot. Germany has relatively apolitical judges. Instead, I think the spectacle seen in the US has more to do with the role the Federalist Society has played polarising the legal profession, making the politics of judicial candidates interesting to career politicians. Relevant to the Assange case is not that judges benefit from showing overt political affiliation, but that ambitious judges want to be seen as safe non-boat-rockers - establishment friendly, if you like - because there is the possibility of having appointments nixed by, e.g., the Lord Chancellor.