Comment by mathiaspoint
6 days ago
That mess inspired the American legal system though, which is probably one of if not the best in the world.
IMO common law is still better than case law at least.
6 days ago
That mess inspired the American legal system though, which is probably one of if not the best in the world.
IMO common law is still better than case law at least.
I’m curious to know how American legal system is better than any other country’s. From the outside looking in, it looks just as broken if not worse.
You may have been kidding, but I’m sure someone will genuinely think so and have some decent arguments for it.
My favourite inspiration goes the opposite direction. The United States has this Supreme Court, a final Court of Appeal, politically independent and empowered even to decide that the government's actions are illegal. Sounds great.
The UK had this rather antique thing called the "Lords of Appeal in Ordinary" aka "Law Lords" who were in theory just some Lords (ie people who are arbitrarily in the upper chamber of the Parliament, maybe because their dad was) but served the same purpose as a final court of appeal in practice and so had for a very long time all been Judges because duh, of course they should be judges, that's a job for a judge, just make some judges Lords and forget about it. They met in some committee room in the Palace of Westminster, because they're Lords and that's where the Lords are, right? So, there was practical independence, but the appearance was not here.
About 15 years ago now, the dusty Law Lords were in the way of an attempted reform of parliament. A Supreme Court sounds like a good idea, so the UK got a Supreme Court. It fixed up a nice building nearby, gave the exact same people a new job title and sent them over the road. Done.
But the UK version does what it says on the tin. It said on the tin they're politically independent. In the US of course this "independence" is bullshit, but in the UK since there's already a politically independent process to pick judges the same process continues for the Supreme Court. So a Prime Minister might hate the supreme court but they can't pick the judges.
Politically independent?! Between an extremely dry sense of humour and sarcasm, I can't tell which.
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The Prime Minister can influence earlier in the chain though: they get to approve appointments to the Lords as a whole. Who then gets appointed to positions within the Lords is none of their business, but they can tip the scale if they need to.
It's actually for this reason that for hundreds of years until the early 21st century there was real concern about having a Catholic prime minister. There was even hand-wringing over PMs of other denominations, but the history of Catholicism in the UK in particular raised concern. Why? The PM has final approval of the Lords Spiritual - the bishops from the Church of England who are there to provide a protestant spiritual dimension to all debates before that House.
It's allegedly for this reason that Tony Blair (married to a Catholic) waited until after he left office to convert. I think it was either Brown or Cameron who then got the law explicitly changed to not bar Catholics and other religions to serve as PM.
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> That mess inspired the American legal system though, which is probably one of if not the best in the world.
Poe's Law strikes again.
The American legal system isn't even the best legal system in the US.
> in the US
Huh? What does this mean? Are there other systems in the US that I’m not aware of?
Yes, the indigenous domestic nations.
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How dare you. Do you want to get sued?
/s
Isn't the american legal system the one who famously killed Sacco and Vanzetti?