In my opinion you’ve neglected sortition’s ability to vastly improve the capacity of citizens to make informed decisions. Improved capacity makes sortition the better way to select, and hold accountable, political leadership compared to elections.
When choosing justices on the one hand you want to choose them meritocratically and on the other hand, you want that the views of the population are well represented.
For justices in lower courts who are just supposed to rule in the way the higher courts would, you can just pick them meritocratically without problems if the higher courts are selected in a way that represents the view of the population.
I disagree. Blindness is the main attribute of Justice. Rawls and the Romans were right. Meritocracy is nice at the gates of the career, but how do you measure merit among the chief justices? Any mechanism different from the lottery will become a battlefield.
Moreover, I don’t believe in merit among the experienced Justices. Law is not like chess or Physics. It is about consensus, and intuitiveness. There is not a real object to be discovered by the jurisconsult, but a mix of system, continuity, social agreement, and a bit of game theoretical intuitions. Who is the “best” at that?
Regarding the views of the population, I am for judicial review by the legislature, but not in the late stages of the career, because the closer to the high court is the political intervention, the higher becomes the risk of capture.
In my opinion you’ve neglected sortition’s ability to vastly improve the capacity of citizens to make informed decisions. Improved capacity makes sortition the better way to select, and hold accountable, political leadership compared to elections.
But even if you think that more can be done, what do you think as its use to create “expert panels” including the Supreme Court?
It looks so natural that it is increíble that Sortition (among professional justices) for High Courts is not universal.
When choosing justices on the one hand you want to choose them meritocratically and on the other hand, you want that the views of the population are well represented.
For justices in lower courts who are just supposed to rule in the way the higher courts would, you can just pick them meritocratically without problems if the higher courts are selected in a way that represents the view of the population.
I disagree. Blindness is the main attribute of Justice. Rawls and the Romans were right. Meritocracy is nice at the gates of the career, but how do you measure merit among the chief justices? Any mechanism different from the lottery will become a battlefield.
Moreover, I don’t believe in merit among the experienced Justices. Law is not like chess or Physics. It is about consensus, and intuitiveness. There is not a real object to be discovered by the jurisconsult, but a mix of system, continuity, social agreement, and a bit of game theoretical intuitions. Who is the “best” at that?
Regarding the views of the population, I am for judicial review by the legislature, but not in the late stages of the career, because the closer to the high court is the political intervention, the higher becomes the risk of capture.
Sure, I think your proposal is a great idea.