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Biden calls for supreme court reforms including 18-year justice term limits
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2024
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More that something like corruption is impossible to completely prevent. So you just try to make it harder by reducing incentives. We can't get to "perfect" in a world with humans in it, but "better" is a realistically attainable achievement.
Okay, but it's not being prevented at all. The current system incentivizes corruption because, clearly, it is practically impossible to do anything about justices who have succumbed to that corruption. So within the context of an environment where billionaires can dump limitless money on a justice and the constituents of that justice can do nothing at all to recall them or even really reprimand them in any way, how is that not asking for corruption to happen?
Biden's proposals also includes an enforceable code of ethics to address corruption on the bench. And as Carrolade mentions, Congress can impeach and remove judges.
From the article:
If they aren't being removed and imprisoned for the kind of activity we see from, say, justice Thomas then the code of ethics isn't strict enough.
How many times has that happened in history? If the standard is set such that enforcement is practically impossible to reach, then the rules supposedly being enforced practically don't exist.
Well said. There's a strong tendency for people to revere tradition and the constitution a little too much. They forget that our democracy is old (as far as modern democracies go). The constitution was set up by a bunch of wealthy landowners (and some of them were slaveholders). It's a collection of pretty bad compromises that had to be amended 27 times...and now is practically impossible to amend.
Supreme Court Justice is a very important and respectable position, but there's nine of them (for now) because one person can't be trusted with too much power. I think it should be limited even further. We give them too much veneration and power under the current system. Treating these people as infallible demigods is what got us into this mess to begin with.
There actually is a method provided for justice removal, it just takes Congress, which also features corruption unfortunately. Also, just because there is some corruption evident does not mean it is not being prevented at all. Are all 9 corrupt? That would eventually happen if it was not prevented at all.
Importantly though, short term limits would also not prevent corruption, and would probably increase it, as Justices would become much more interested in joining businesses and lobbying organizations after their tenures are up. Hence, a middle ground is probably smarter.