Gerrymandering: Another Good Supreme Court Decision

Just to be clear, in the US, judges on the state and local level are elected while federal judges are appointed by the federal executive with Congressional oversight.In some jurisdictions the state and local elections are partisan, while in others the judges have no party affiliations. Again in the US, Supreme Court Justices are appointed by the president and vetted by Congress. The presidential appointment is accepted a very high percentage of the time, but the Justices are not elected.How does the UK prevent the justices in their highest courts from becoming partisan. How is the Independent Commission chosen?Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Jon, you are playing the buffoon yet again. I am sorry to say that for you such an observation is no longer of any particular note.This is from vimsey's original post. Clearly the issue here is partisan politics. If one insists that the judicial branch, which is indeed a government function, is of necessity a political function (something I find arguable[1]), then surely you can understand that such politics are not necessarily partisan.And it is partisan politics and the possibility of eliminating that from the selection of judges that we've been discussing with vimsey ever since.Everyone but you seems to be interested in the topic. You, of all the posters seems to insist that there is nothing to discuss.People routinely use political in the way discussed here. For example we might say that one decision or another of the Supreme Court was made on a political basis rather than on the basis of the merits of the case.If your sole input here is to play language police, I would recommend that the other posters take that into account before they bother responding to your nonsense. The rest of us understand vimsey's point.[1] As for the judicial function being of necessity political, by and large that is not the case. I don't expect politics to play into a land dispute between me and my neighbor or a guilty verdict on OJ Simpson. Maybe some people do call such functions politics, but such people are not using the word in the every day sense.

The era you refer to is one of extreme partisan politics by the Supreme Court, but Roosevelt did not actually appoint any extra judges. He asked the legislature for the power to do so. The Supreme Court responded by ceasing to issue their totally partisan rulings. Ultimately the bill allowing the president the power to appoint more judges did not pass.

I would suggest that in the US, the federal judiciary is just as independent of the government. The other branches of government can rail all they want about the decisions judges and Justices make, but they have no power to punish them or to influence their decisions. Judges, once appointed, hold their positions for life. Impeachment is a complete rarity. On constitutional matters, the SC has the last say.It is the involvement of politics in the selection of judges that is the difference.

How does the Supreme Court enforce their judgments?Enforcement is not a judicial function. All judges can do is write more judgments. The executive branch carries out the functions of government.

The constitution requires that the President appoint justices. I think they've always tried to put like minded Justices on the court, however there have been some very notable failures. Justice Stevens was appointed by Gerald Ford and Justice Souter was appointed by Bush Sr. Both turned out to be reliably liberal and both retired at a time when a Democrat (Obama) would select their replacements.I don't think today's Court is at the height of its political involvement simply because of Kennedy's evolving to be the swing vote. We seem to get a reasonable mix of conservative and liberal opinions with a surprising slight edge to liberal opinions this term.

Take a civics class Jon. It is your position that the judiciary's enforcement process is of some relevance to this discussion.