VIII. The Official Debate Decision and Recommendations -
- This report seeks to resolve conflict in affirming or negating the CFOJA debate resolution on the adequacy of judicial oversight in America without throwing any proverbial babies out with the bath water
- It seems “the real problem for our country is not the reality or unwarranted perception of judicial misconduct”, but the lack of forums for addressing related allegations that do not rely almost exclusively for effectiveness on judicial integrity and/or that of lawyers and/or public officials whose power and/or careers are controlled or substantially impacted by judges
- This report is a limited endorsement of three (3) major grassroots legal reform efforts
- Adequate judicial oversight is not generally available in America through well-established government processes, but contrary to a popular sentiment, the inadequacy is not due to corruption
It may be true that judges best understand judging just as doctors best understand medical malpractice (once they distinguish standard of practice from standard of care which are not identical). But even in a perfect world, we somehow don’t want any group of professionals to be the final arbiter of the competence or the integrity of its members.
Whether or not judicial self-policing works is perhaps less the issue than having a system of accountability that will work in both a perfect and an imperfect world. The recommendations in this Report go far toward seeing this need. And there are those who remind us we do not live in a perfect world.
Andrew
Comment by Andrew D. Jackson — June 17, 2009 @ 2:55 am