[rickc]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

It seems to work well iin Canada.

Does it? Or maybe there just is not a whole lot of earth shattering court cases that would affect the fate of western man going on in Canada on a day to day basis like the U.S. Look at this forum. It is a Canadian forum, yet the vast majority of the threads are about what is going on in the states. Thats a good thing. Lately I spend my days dreaming of doing some fly in fishing, no cell phones, no laptops, no TV's, armed with only a rod and a flare gun. I can dream can't I? You cannot say with a straight face that politics have nothing to do with judicial appointments in Canada, can you? Politics are politics. Its human nature. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. Don't pretend that Canada is above the fray.

Seriously though I think that if judges are appointed it should be through a lottery process. There should be qualifying guidelines established. Credentials and time in position well stated for the record. The area that is going to be served should be large enough to nullify local prejudices. Maybe the pool should be nationwide to eliminate regional differences altogether. Color blind and politics free would be the order of the day. Names would go into a drum based on qualifications only. Hundreds of witnesses present. Pull the names and offer the positions. That would be the fairest way to do it to avoid favoritism or people needing to keep the locals happy to keep their job. I could go along with those kind of appointments to the bench.

[rickc]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

It seems to work well iin Canada.

Besides, judges are supposed to interpret the law impartially. So in the example of a pipeline, a judge's job would be to determine matters such as whether a party has a legal right to build or prevent a pipeline, not to decide whether the pipeline is good or bad policy- the latter is the job of the legislative branch, not the judicial branch.

Further, judges preside over hundreds of cases in a term. A community electing a particular judge because they think that particular judges philosophical approach to the law may favour them in one particular case would be short-sighted because it may work against them in the next case.

You added to your original post. Elected judges do what they have to do to keep their job. No elected judge in standing rock N.D. is going to go along with the Dakota pipeline. Not going to happen. They may have other cases to deliberate, but there is no way in hell they are going to cross the vast majority of their constituents. The same thing happened in the American south during the civil rights era of the 60's. No local elected judge in the south was going to go against Jim Crow laws. He would lose his job, career, maybey his life. Maybey his families lives would be put in jeopardy. The feds had to step in and take over the situation. The federal judges did not have to worry about local elections. They could do the right thing. Millions of people hating them did not affect their career.

[BeaverFever]

Well for one thing court cases in any country don't affect the fate of western man as courts have no jurisdiction outside their own national boundaries.

Canadian courts hear cases that are important to Canadians on a daily basis while US courts hear cases that atte important to Americans and Belgian courts hear cases that ate important to Belgians and so on.


I think you're cynical because of the way the US works. Our court cases are just as important to us as yours are to you and both have very little direct impact on those living outside our respective borders.



As for the Canadian system, the process varies by province and level of court but in several provinces the judge is selected by an arms-length advisory committee made up of members of different groups (e.g. Legal profession, sitting judges, other prominent members of society, government, etc). in order to minimize government influence. There are 17 such committees across Canada in all.

Supreme Court justice appointments can sometimes be controversial but not to the extent that they are in the states. Appointments to other levels of court by the province or feds barely make the news and are generally not controversial.


And because the judges aren't partisan to begin with, there aren't "Liberal Party" judges and "Conservative Party" judges the way you have "Democrat" and "Republican" judges in the us for politicians to just choose from. Some judges may have a more progressive viewpoint and others may be traditionalists but they're still within a reasonable range of each other, they're not partisan actors and there are no radicals or extremists