I suppose a third option would be appointment by an independent, nonpartisan panel. Of course, keeping it nonpartisan is likely a fairytale.
Canada’s federal Senate appoints Senators for life and is more-or-less completely impotent and redundant legislatively.
Canadian federal senators are also appointed by geography, due to some constitutional provisions.
There's essentially a consensus in Canada that the Senate requires complete reform, but it is also impossible to achieve politically since it would require reopening the Constitution. This is politically untenable since two prior attempts in the 80s and 90s were spectacular failures and Canada’s francophone province of Quebec never even signed on to the existing 1982 version and would demand tons of insane constitutional concessions if the matter was reopened.
So one western province, Alberta, decided to attempt a quasi-elected federal Senator model. When a regional federal Senate seat is available, the province added a list of potential candidates to the ballot (don't know who vets these) to create a few candidates voted on by their citizenry.
Since not of it is binding or constitutional, the Prime Minister has no obligation to appoint any of these candidates "elected" by the province (pretty sure partisan hack Trudeau ignored the results and just appoints his own toadies).
But there are likely some hybrid elected/appointed models that could be used to select the judiciary.
Appointment by lottery? Candidates would still either have to put themselves forward or be nominated, but a lottery will make it harder to rig the process, since there is only a percentage chance of being successful, rather than this being potentially guaranteed.
I actually think including randomness in many of our decision making processes will reduce corruption, as this is a limit as to how effective corruption could be - it will be capped by the random selection process. Of course, the random selection itself could be corrupted, but it is relatively easy make this transparent enough that it cannot be corrupted easily.
My latest ridiculous imaginary system for the US is completely independent, for-profit private prosecutors replacing AGs and DAs at all levels. In a privatized system, licensed independent prosecutorial offices bring people to court in exchange for bounties put up by the state. The state publishes the bounty for each crime or category of crimes ahead of time, with the monetary range defined in the statute and reviewed every year by the legislature. So bounties are per-infraction and don't target any specific crime or suspect. State AG still exists as an office of last resort, and can post additional bounties on behalf of the state. Independent offices have the same powers of investigation as the state, and are given equal access to official resources such as crime labs.
In addition to the state-sponsored bounties, anyone can pay for a prosecution the way people donate to legal defense funds today. For example a chain of drugstores getting burglarized would put up extra money to ensure the perp is quickly brought to trial. To avoid frivolous charges being brought against someone - where "the process is the punishment" - offices have to pay back all court costs plus a steep penalty if the defendant is successful, or wins an appeal against the judgement. Offices would not be permitted to take funding from outside their jurisdiction.
You might be asking how adding MORE bias and profit-motive can possibly limit abuse of the legal system.
The penalty above will deter any company and most activist charities limited to local donations from wanting to waste time and money charging someone unless they think conviction is a sure thing. In a state-run system that would be less of a deterrence since you're using tax dollars.
I do expect overzealous prosecution to skyrocket in the beginning, but you'll have it from all sides. People would be constantly hassled over minor offenses regardless of current year politics. Eventually it will annoy enough powerful people that they would demand stupid and tyrannical laws be changed or eliminated.
I'm sure there are tons of problems with this, but it's all just mental masturbation so feel free to imagine something better.
At least in theory the elected prosecutor will reflect the citizens desires on crime. If the represented populace doesn't care much about drug crimes, they will elect someone softer on it and vice versa.
Appointed will always be corrupt simply by the nature of nepotism and biased interests from the appointer.
Well yes, but that won't change if they are appointed in the slightest. It'll be even easier because they don't even have to waste time putting on a sham election.
Its not that the elected one is great, its that its just mostly bad instead of completely so.
I mean, the crazy stuff that goes on in Portland would never fly in any country with appointed prosecutors. Hell, I have difficulty persuading people that this is something that actually happened, so far is it from what they can even conceive as possible.
It's terrible to have elected prosecutors (see Rittenhouse). It's also terrible to have appointed prosecutors.
Which is worse? And is there a third option that's better?
I suppose a third option would be appointment by an independent, nonpartisan panel. Of course, keeping it nonpartisan is likely a fairytale.
Canada’s federal Senate appoints Senators for life and is more-or-less completely impotent and redundant legislatively.
Canadian federal senators are also appointed by geography, due to some constitutional provisions.
There's essentially a consensus in Canada that the Senate requires complete reform, but it is also impossible to achieve politically since it would require reopening the Constitution. This is politically untenable since two prior attempts in the 80s and 90s were spectacular failures and Canada’s francophone province of Quebec never even signed on to the existing 1982 version and would demand tons of insane constitutional concessions if the matter was reopened.
So one western province, Alberta, decided to attempt a quasi-elected federal Senator model. When a regional federal Senate seat is available, the province added a list of potential candidates to the ballot (don't know who vets these) to create a few candidates voted on by their citizenry.
Since not of it is binding or constitutional, the Prime Minister has no obligation to appoint any of these candidates "elected" by the province (pretty sure partisan hack Trudeau ignored the results and just appoints his own toadies).
But there are likely some hybrid elected/appointed models that could be used to select the judiciary.
Appointment by lottery? Candidates would still either have to put themselves forward or be nominated, but a lottery will make it harder to rig the process, since there is only a percentage chance of being successful, rather than this being potentially guaranteed.
I actually think including randomness in many of our decision making processes will reduce corruption, as this is a limit as to how effective corruption could be - it will be capped by the random selection process. Of course, the random selection itself could be corrupted, but it is relatively easy make this transparent enough that it cannot be corrupted easily.
Ben Franklin wanted a lottery for representatives. It would be like jury duty.
Excellent idea. Like the ancient Athenians did.
My latest ridiculous imaginary system for the US is completely independent, for-profit private prosecutors replacing AGs and DAs at all levels. In a privatized system, licensed independent prosecutorial offices bring people to court in exchange for bounties put up by the state. The state publishes the bounty for each crime or category of crimes ahead of time, with the monetary range defined in the statute and reviewed every year by the legislature. So bounties are per-infraction and don't target any specific crime or suspect. State AG still exists as an office of last resort, and can post additional bounties on behalf of the state. Independent offices have the same powers of investigation as the state, and are given equal access to official resources such as crime labs.
In addition to the state-sponsored bounties, anyone can pay for a prosecution the way people donate to legal defense funds today. For example a chain of drugstores getting burglarized would put up extra money to ensure the perp is quickly brought to trial. To avoid frivolous charges being brought against someone - where "the process is the punishment" - offices have to pay back all court costs plus a steep penalty if the defendant is successful, or wins an appeal against the judgement. Offices would not be permitted to take funding from outside their jurisdiction.
You might be asking how adding MORE bias and profit-motive can possibly limit abuse of the legal system.
The penalty above will deter any company and most activist charities limited to local donations from wanting to waste time and money charging someone unless they think conviction is a sure thing. In a state-run system that would be less of a deterrence since you're using tax dollars.
I do expect overzealous prosecution to skyrocket in the beginning, but you'll have it from all sides. People would be constantly hassled over minor offenses regardless of current year politics. Eventually it will annoy enough powerful people that they would demand stupid and tyrannical laws be changed or eliminated.
I'm sure there are tons of problems with this, but it's all just mental masturbation so feel free to imagine something better.
At least in theory the elected prosecutor will reflect the citizens desires on crime. If the represented populace doesn't care much about drug crimes, they will elect someone softer on it and vice versa.
Appointed will always be corrupt simply by the nature of nepotism and biased interests from the appointer.
Unfortunately, it seems that in practice, they reflect George Soros and their wealthy donors.
Well yes, but that won't change if they are appointed in the slightest. It'll be even easier because they don't even have to waste time putting on a sham election.
Its not that the elected one is great, its that its just mostly bad instead of completely so.
I mean, the crazy stuff that goes on in Portland would never fly in any country with appointed prosecutors. Hell, I have difficulty persuading people that this is something that actually happened, so far is it from what they can even conceive as possible.
The best part of this whole story is that the government arrested a dissident because they received an award for being a dissident.
Canada’s Justice system is indistinguishable from North Korea or China right now.
Except Canada has much worse demographics thanks to trying to replace all the white people