For reference, I highlight below the changes to the Constitution and the Legal Code effected by this bill, using BBcode annotation:
Article 4 Section 2 of the Constitution of The North Pacific:
2. The Court will consist of a Chief Justice and at least two associate a least three jJustices., who will select a Chief Justice among themselves.
Chapter 4 Section 4.5 of the Codified Law of The North Pacific:
15. The election cycle for the terms of the Chief Justice, Associate Justices, and the Attorney General will begin on the first days of the months of March, July, and November.
The purpose of this bill is to change the way the Chief Justice is elected. To describe its effect in a single clause: instead of the Regional Assembly separately electing a Chief Justice and two Associate Justices, they will be electing three Justices who then will be internally electing one of themselves as Chief Justice.
The proposed system has, I believe, two important advantages over the current one. The first has to do with a serious inefficiency of our current electoral system. Consider the following, very likely, scenario: In a judicial election, there are two outstanding candidates, and two of considerably lower quality. The two good candidates both have aspirations to become Chief Justice, and therefore submit their names to that ballot; the two bad candidates, on the other hand, enter the Associate Justice ballot. As a result, the election returns a Court comprising one good and two bad Justices. Contrast this with my proposed system, which would result (assuming voters select reasonably) in a Court comprising two good and one bad Justices.
The second advantage is that the proposed change reinforces a role for the Chief Justice as a primus inter pares among their colleagues. The additional duties and power afforded to the Chief Justice are mostly of administrative nature (their only power outside the Court is to appoint Electoral Commissioners). Yet it is not unimaginable that a Chief Justice could use their direct legislation to assert themselves additional legitimacy, and exploit that to achieve undue additional influence during Court deliberations, or to "boss around" the Associate Justices
1. This would be undesirable behavior, both because it would be an overstepping of the Chief Justice's authority and it would negatively affect the outcome of court cases. My proposed change reinforces the administrative nature of the Chief Justice's role and the collegiate nature of the Court, and makes such abuse more unlikely to occur and easier to control.
The current draft does not prescribe a procedure for how the Justices would select the Chief Justice. I personally prefer to leave that as an internal matter of the Court, however I do not have very strong feelings on this matter. If others members believe it is important to lay down some rules on the selection, I would be willing to include them in the draft.
1For the record, I am not implying that the current Chief Justice has exploited his office in such a way. Though I do not have access to the Court private chambers, I would imagine that quite the opposite is the case. However, it is a plausible danger.
. You can replace my reasonable voter assumption with a rational voter one, and my argument will still hold. A rational voter is one who votes for the candidate offering the optimal expected outcome for the voter, as defined by whatever utility function the voter is using. That may be anything, from the amount of legal expertise, to trolling skill. Outstanding and bad candidates are, then, specified accordingly.
) of Section 4.6's clauses made necessary by the additions.
