Bill to reform the courts

It seems that the argument randomly will raise up and then die down. I will, however, withdraw my motion.

To be blunt, I think the whole thing is stupid. The election system keeps people moving through the positions, and elected appointments will not necessarily improve the speed, accuracy, or consistency of the Court. It will limit the evolution of the law, as three indefinitely-tenured individuals will be highly unlikely to change their minds and reverse any previous decisions (not that the rate of reversals is important, but it's something that the Court needs to be able to do, and having three static justices will be a near-complete bar to that, effectively.) It will limit the ability of the community's standards to evolve, as justices' personal views on matters would become an element of the equation and those Justices could not be removed except by the recall process (which is ineffective). Stagnation sucks. Also, inactivity of lifetime-appointed people sucks. Recall as the only accountability mechanism would mean that Justices would have no incentive to do things quickly, as they didn't have to worry about terms ending. They wouldn't have to worry about ensuring that their actions are in keeping with the reasonable expectations of the population (in terms of activity, mind you - not in terms of outcomes) because they'd only be accountable through the Recall procedure which, again, barely functions.

If we go to appointments, simple majority is not acceptable. Justices have massive impact on the region - simple majority is too low of a requirement for an individual who will be asked to judge things for us as long as they like.

Appointed AGs is less stupid, but I don't think the AG should serve at the pleasure of the Delegate. The AG needs to be separate in order to exercise his legal right to have the Courts review questionable government actions. If the AG is an appointee of the AG, the impartiality of the position with regard to the sitting government would be completely abolished. The AG is separate from the executive branch for precisely this reason - the AG is an executive branch office in the real world, and look how many politically motivated prosecutions we see. Why the fuck would we want more of that here?

So let's change "for life" to "two delegate terms" or something similar.

Noone has presented any substantive reason why they believe that appointed justices will be more efficient. Is there any argument, or simply an unsupported assertion?

Gaspo:

Noone has presented any substantive reason why they believe that appointed justices will be more efficient. Is there any argument, or simply an unsupported assertion?

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Gaspo, what constitutes a "substantive reason" in your opinion?

I'd also add what is a substantive reason that elected justices are more efficient than appointed justices?

EDIT: My point is, if we're to have a conversation on the topic, simply because convention (and law :p) dictates we elect justices perhaps we should have a more lengthy discussion on the pros/cons of either approach. Better still, perhaps we should ask what is the problem we're trying to fix?

Perhaps if you read the rest of this forum section, you'd see that I've already begun conversation on that topic. My request for substantive reasoning is based on the fact that there is no efficiency incentive associated with appointments vs. elections for Justices. There has been no explanation of why appointments will incentivise the Courts to work faster than they do now, or how life tenure with no added means of removal in the case of inactivity (beyond Recall, which we already have) will improve efficiency. It's simply being claimed that it will improve efficiency, but noone can come up with a reason why.