America's greatest leader just declared his candidacy...

[mrstickball]

HappySqurriel said:

ManusJustus said:

Elected judges answer to the people, elected politicians answer to the people.  If they do something you don't like, you can vote against them and get them out of office.  For instance, a judge in my homestate was kicked out of office for having his vacation paid for by the owner of a coal company before he ruled in their favor in a major lawsuit.  Now imagine the same people not only trying to bribe elected judges, but actually paying their pay checks.

I don't understand your argument here, I highly doubt any privately employed individual is more prone to bribes than a public employee; and public officials are often bribed in the open in the form of campaign contributions and lobbying. Beyond that, the private company would still be paid for by the government and would still be required to answer to the people (indirectly).

 

To explain how I would expect a "private judicial" system to operate is a judicial company would bid on a bundle of court cases related to a certain type of law, and based on the track record of the company and their bit price these contracts would be given out. Most likely, the court cases that would be given out would be the large volume of unimportant legal trials, like divorce trials and small civil trials, and the higher courts and most important trials would remain in the hands of the public courts.

For what its worth, we do actually have privately run courts in America. I didn't think about it till now, but we absolutely do.

They work pretty well, too. If you watch American TV from 1pm to 4pm, you see them with Judge Mathis, Nancy Grace or other such programs. They are not public courthouses, but private arbiters that are paid by a company to handle cases. Of course, these are used to make money, but the idea is certainly there.