[hash872]

I've been thinking a lot about judicial review in common law democracies recently, and I tentatively think a better system would be to vastly expand the number of judges that are involved in making a decision. Example, you'd still have a tiered court system, and your case would still be heard in front of say a 3-9 panel appeals court- but after they write their decisions, a couple hundred other appeals judges at the same level get to a simple cast up or down vote on the decision, remotely. That way the case is decided by a larger, more stable pool of qualified judges- it's not like 1 judge dies, is replaced by the other party, and now that appeals court starts issuing totally partisan decisions the other way on a 5-4 vote.

It would hopefully make the judiciary overall less partisan, less of a high-stakes affair to nominate an appeals judge, and less swinging back and forth between 5-4 Democratic or Republican votes

[pavon]

I think that would make things more partisan, not less. Those hundreds of judges are not going to have the time to study the case in as much detail as the assigned judges, so their decisions will be based on a quick cursory reading, and their justification won't be on the record to be reviewed by higher courts. While motivated reasoning is always a concern, I would expect it to be more common in decisions made in this situation.

[rosywoozlechan]

I think you're just describing court packing because maybe you disagree with the outcome based on your partisan politics?

[hash872]

What? No. I'm not talking about adding tons of judges to the existing US system now. I'm describing a future potential system, likely for a new country

[colechristensen]

I have a feeling this would make things considerably more political.

If you don’t like what judges decide, get people elected who will write things clearly into law. If they can’t do that, it sucks, go fix the political situation and stop trying to fix that dysfunction by making major systematic changes.

[hash872]

>get people elected who will write things clearly into law

You can pass whatever law you'd like now- the existing judiciary can simply decide that it doesn't apply or isn't 'constitutional', and their decisions aren't reviewable. It's awarding ultimate power in society to a very small group The vast majority of developed countries don't work this way, at all https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_sovereignty

At a minimum, calling a law 'unconstitutional' should require a supermajority out of a fairly large body