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If we didn't grant lifetime tenure to judges, they would live in perpetual fear of retaliation from ruling against a powerful or well-connected defendant. C.F.
by rhelz 4y ago
If we didn't grant lifetime tenure to judges, they would live in perpetual fear of retaliation from ruling against a powerful or well-connected defendant.
C.F. also university professors or school teachers who also get similar, tho more limited tenure.
Not saying there are no edge cases where the policy can be problematic, but when you are standing in judgement over people, its a lot easier to be impartial and a lot easier to reject bribes when you have that kind of security.
- sidewndr46 4y agoAlso known as "normal job security" to anyone living in the real world.
- kelipso 4y agoJust set it to 20 years or something with no option to renew. There are plenty of government positions that have limit of like 5 years or something.
- giobox 4y agoThis has a simple solution used in other countries - Lifetime appointments with mandatory retirement ages. The UK as one example requires much of the judiciary to retire by 70.
- ihumanable 4y agoWe could just appoint them until a given age, let's say 70 for example, and then guarantee lifetime benefits after that but they no longer serve. It has all the same benefits of a lifetime tenure, they don't need to worry about retaliation, they wouldn't be _more_ likely to accept bribes since they will still have income and benefits for their retirement, etc.
- philsnow 4y ago> all the same benefits of a lifetime tenure Well, unless the person strongly values the contribution to society that being a judge represents. If there's another career they could go into and still practice into their 90s, maybe they'd prefer that.
- ipcress_file 4y agoCanada's Senate has a mandatory retirement age of 75. So that's a perfectly workable solution.