“The framers gave life tenure to federal judges to ensure an independent judiciary, a judiciary that would not bow to the political pressure of the day.” What the framers failed to recognize is that justices would be reluctant to leave their position for persona or political reasons or before mental decline. My 28th amendment will help to solve these problems.
Judicial Independence is fundamental to democracy, it serves as a guarantor of the rule of law and separation of power . However, nothing is perfect. There is some defect regarding to the judicial independence and solution must be made to curb the weakness.
Merit –compare and contrast the role of judges ,lawyers and lay people within the English courts.
Bringing in new judges will allow for different thought patterns and views on certain problems. In addition, “a different perspective can permit you to more fully understand the arguments that are before you and help you articulate your position in a way that everyone will understand” (Sotomayor, 2016). Furthermore, newer judges would relieve others of the concern that the judges are unfortunately unable to keep up with the current society and their needs. As a result, newer judges will be able to notice the issues that the current society may be needed to be
In this chapter, the question of if judicial independence is being undermined is asked. Attacks upon activist judges is a recurring theme in the United States. Various judges are attacked across the state for the decisions they make. In an adversary system, a judge’s decision often fails to find favor with the losing party. These losing parties normally label the judge as and “activist”. This means that the judge had made an unpopular opinion. There has been many examples of judges being subject to the attacks such as when Justice Penny White was voted off the bench because she voted in a death penalty case to grant the defendant more leeway. These attacks on judges can have a harsh impact on the judicial independence. The American Judicature
There are times when areas of government are operating improperly and the judiciary must step in to be able to return it to order. These instances are often met with controversy as people are dismayed by the branch overstepping its traditional boundaries. Despite this discomfort, it is always better that constitutionality and order be reinstated than people gain comfort in their unlawful actions and decisions. Examples of these instances of judges stepping forward to get these areas back on the correct path include the Boston busing situation and the reforms in the Oakland Police Department.
Each state within the United States of America (USA) has its own unique judicial selection process within its court system. The judicial processes vary from court to court depending on a particular state. This paper analyses these processes, the qualifications for selecting the judges and the steps for removing judges from office, as it applies in the USA states of New York and Texas.
The first part of this essay will provide a brief insight into the history of the Supreme Court, the original intentions of the founding fathers and a discussion on how they idealized the relationship between politics and the law. The second section will explore how the contemporary process to which judges are appointed has become significantly influenced by politics. The third section will discuss how the Supreme Court overstepped its boundaries on constitutional interpretation in the Roe v. Wade case. The final section will unpack the importance of partisanship and ideological politics and discuss how it impacts the function of the Justices in their
In partisan elections, the party affiliation of the candidate is indicated on the ballot. This election method is constantly criticized and is only used by a few states when selecting judges, Texas being one of them. Several questions come to mind when discussing partisan elections causing many to believe that it's an inappropriate way to choose judges. when citizens elect judges in partisan elections problems arise when considering campaign contributions, lack of minority representation on the bench, perceptions of fairness, and lack of knowledge on the part of the voters.
With lifelong tenure, Hamilton adds that judges “shall hold their Offices during good behaviour.” Most importantly, Hamilton advocated lifelong tenure to prevent the decisions being made on the whims of someone who will not be in office in the next few years. Additionally, life-long tenure cures the problem with the whims of those, with a short time in office not having to deal with the current decision in a future context. In as much the continuity of constitutional integrity, laws can be less than clear cut with their impact sometimes not fully understood right away. It may take years for the impact of a law to become clear. In light of this, life-long tenure is the only way to ensure that judges are making sound decisions with future implications
According to the findings of the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes, 86.7 percent of respondents indicate that judicial impartiality is an essential or very important quality for the judiciary. However, Judges began to be seen less as the impersonal agent of a system and more as a human being responsible for failure of the losing party. This bias may be caused by political and sociological movement against judges’ power. In fact, judicial impartiality is not equivalent to passiveness or detachment of judges. Active judicial conduct is necessary for judicial impartiality. This opinion is supported by Mack and Anleu (2012) .
During the week seven class session on February 7th, Joseph P. Farina, retired Chief Judge of Florida’s 11th Circuit, discussed the judicial system with the class. I knew most of the technical material that he covered because I have taken Judicial Process in the past. I loved his use of legal inside terms like “cash register justice” in terms of prosecutor discretion and “stiffs and gifts” for probate. I will never forget what probate refers to. I agreed with Farina’s presentation, and I think that his presentation was particularly powerful in regards to showing ethics in the legal profession. He discussed economic disadvantage in appeals due to the cost of transcripts and the process and determining punishment.
There are advantages and disadvantages of electing state judges. The advantages of having an election are that in our democratic system the American voters get a say in who will represent them judicially in their state. This is an advantage that most voters don’t take advantage of but for those who do it is an important advantage. Another advantage is that it is simply an easier process. It’s much easier for a state to just add the judicial candidates to the ballot, when there is already an election going on. So it certainly simplifies things in that regard. However there are many concerns that come with the not just the election itself but with the campaign process for state judges. Such as where is the money coming from for the campaign and
The authors went about investigating their hypotheses by creating an experiment that abstracted from and manipulated aspects of a contemporary controversy over the impartiality of a justice in the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. The experiment’s vignette, or a short descriptive account, was modeled after Caperton v. Massey (2009) and the failure of Justice Brent Benjamin to withdraw from the case involving Massey Coal Company whose CEO, Don L. Blankenship, spent over three million dollars to get Benjamin elected onto the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. By abstracting from and manipulating aspects of this real world dispute in Caperton v. Massey over judicial impartiality the authors created their vignette which was concerned with “whether the failure of a judge to withdraw from a case involving a party who expended considerable resources in getting that judge elected to the bench creates the appearance of bias and partiality, thereby undermining public confidence in the judiciary” (). The benefit of using such a vignette instead of a real case is that it allows the authors to manipulate elements of the dispute and test hypotheses concerning how citizens judgements of fairness and
As per Article 124, the President should appoint Supreme Court judges after consultation with such judges of High Courts and the Supreme Court and the Chief Justice of India is to be consulted in all appointments barring his/her own. Similarly, Article 217 provides for the appointment of High Court judges in consultation with the CJI, Governor, and Chief Justice of the High Court concerned. However, in S P Gupta Vs President of India, also known as the ‘First Judges Case’, the Supreme Court ruled that the recommendation made by the CJI to the President can be refused for “cogent reasons”, thereby tilting the scales in favour of the executive. In the ‘Second Judges Case’, the decision by a nine-judge bench in the Supreme Court ‘created’ a