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A scholar of the Supreme Court and its relationship to the people of the United States says that President Joe Biden’s proposed term limits for justices can restore the court’s eroded legitimacy.
Americans, take a look at how the European Court of Justice is staffed:
The Court of Justice consists of 27 Judges who are assisted by 11 Advocates-General. The Judges and Advocates-General are appointed by common accord of the governments of the member states[7] and hold office for a renewable term of six years. The treaties require that they are chosen from legal experts whose independence is “beyond doubt” and who possess the qualifications required for appointment to the highest judicial offices in their respective countries or who are of recognised competence.[7] In practice, each member state nominates a judge whose nomination is then ratified by all other member states.[8]
The Court can sit in plenary session, as a Grand Chamber of fifteen judges (including the president and vice-president), or in chambers of three or five judges. Plenary sittings are now very rare, and the court mostly sits in chambers of three or five judges.[19] Each chamber elects its own president who is elected for a term of three years in the case of the five-judge chambers or one year in the case of three-judge chambers.
The issue for the United States is that the system was designed from the start to guarantee unending political gridlock. Then SCOTUS is the only pressure relief valve to allow legal changes to take place. Thus it has become the focal point for all political energy.
No system can produce an independent court when all of the population is intensely focused on that court as an outlet for political change.
Yes, I’ve argued elsewhere that the Americans need to relearn federalism. Canada, Switzerland, the EU, all have more modern and better functioning federal or federal-like institutions (with their own problems of course, but nowhere near as broken as in the US). Hell, India has a mandatory retirement age for supreme court justices.
Americans, take a look at how the European Court of Justice is staffed:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Court_of_Justice
Not to mention that there are more than one “supreme courts” with different types of expertise.
There is the General Court, the Civil Service Tribunal, and of course very importantly the European Court of Human Rights.
Spread the hazard of hyper-concentration as thin as possible.
The issue for the United States is that the system was designed from the start to guarantee unending political gridlock. Then SCOTUS is the only pressure relief valve to allow legal changes to take place. Thus it has become the focal point for all political energy.
No system can produce an independent court when all of the population is intensely focused on that court as an outlet for political change.
Yes, I’ve argued elsewhere that the Americans need to relearn federalism. Canada, Switzerland, the EU, all have more modern and better functioning federal or federal-like institutions (with their own problems of course, but nowhere near as broken as in the US). Hell, India has a mandatory retirement age for supreme court justices.