The point about having them "serve decades" is to ensure that a single government period isn't enough to swap out all judges. If a new political faction comes i

The point about having them "serve decades" is to ensure that a single government period isn't enough to swap out all judges. If a new political faction comes into power they can't after a short term replace all judges with whatever the view of the season is, but only when the movement is established over long period will gain those powers with election in between, which can rebalance. Taking again Germany as my example, since I know it best: There are 16 judges with a period of 12 years. Adding the age limit and other reasons that averages to about 2 elections per year. Thus a bit more than 4 years till a new group can take over the majority. (Now they are elected alternating by the different chambers of parliament, where one of the chambers, Bundesrat, is also slower moving in replacement ... making it hard for a short term movement to take over control and if, impact is relatively short - unless they stay in power long enough to replace all.