Specialised Courts

[Svartalf]

You prefer judges' yes folk to baseline morons?
I'm not sure which is the greater evil, but I don't see much use to the former.

[MrJonno]

You prefer judges' yes folk to baseline morons?
I'm not sure which is the greater evil, but I don't see much use to the former.

I would rather have a random selection from a pool of trained people , not judges who can keep their existing role, but to put it bluntly I would rather risk a corrupt government than the moronic public (and that applies to most my political thinking).

Many of my 'peers' around where I live can barely speak, they grunt, every second word is a swear word and they probably couldn't keep quiet for 5 minutes never mind days in court. No way should these people let near deciding anyone future

[JimC]

Many of my 'peers' around where I live can barely speak, they grunt, every second word is a swear word and they probably couldn't keep quiet for 5 minutes never mind days in court. No way should these people let near deciding anyone future

You live in Sydney?

[MrJonno]

Many of my 'peers' around where I live can barely speak, they grunt, every second word is a swear word and they probably couldn't keep quiet for 5 minutes never mind days in court. No way should these people let near deciding anyone future

You live in Sydney?

I liked Sydney when I went to Australia, no I live in Birmingham UK

[JimC]

Many of my 'peers' around where I live can barely speak, they grunt, every second word is a swear word and they probably couldn't keep quiet for 5 minutes never mind days in court. No way should these people let near deciding anyone future

You live in Sydney?

I liked Sydney when I went to Australia, no I live in Birmingham UK

It's just the automatic sneer us Melbourne folk apply to Sydney...

[Beatsong]

I don't think we should have jury trials on anything, I trust the average member of the public to decide on someone's future through rationality and free of prejudice about as much as I trust them to have a gun ie not at all

Totally agree, it's a ridiculous institution.

I think the problem goes even deeper than that though, to the very essence of the adversarial nature of common law. The idea seems to be that the best way to get to the truth is by having two parties both applying no objectivity whatsoever but just arguing whatever bullshit is to their best advantage. And then the different flavours of bullshit are supposed to cancel each other out and the judge and/or juror in the middle finds the truth among it all.

I don't know much about it, but my limited understanding is that in civil law countries there is much more work done by judges and experts, either singly or in a panel, gathering information from all sources and trying to appraise it objectively. The prosecution and defense are reduced to providing that information and some basic illumination of their client's case, rather than spending all day playing mind games with a jury to exploit their fallibility.

It seems to me one is more likely to find the truth by focusing on looking for the truth, and spending resources on having people do that, rather than focusing on opposing claims of personal advantage with the truth as an after-thought.

If it were up to me I'd fuck off the whole common law system and replace it with something sensible. No way that's going to happen in jolly old Blighty though.

[MrJonno]

Not sure I'm against the adversarial system through I'm not an expect on the alternatives I don't think the public should be doing anything of any importance unless they are specifically trained to do so

[Svartalf]

I defihnitely prefer the inquisitorial system, it helps even out inequalities (like monetary resources) between the parties, and it forces the prosecution to take elements favorable to the accused into account

[MrJonno]

It's just not in British/American culture where there has to be winners and losers

[Svartalf]

Which just proves how shitty and barbarous those cultures are

[mistermack]

Perhaps we could change motor racing to be fairer.
Let Ferrari and McClaren make the cars, and then drag a few new people off the streets to drive them each race.

Come to think of it, I'd like to see that.

[MrJonno]

Formula 1 is highly regulated for 'fairness' which really limits it as a sport, obviously the drivers make some difference but even with the rules its as much an engineering competition

[mistermack]

Formula 1 is highly regulated for 'fairness' which really limits it as a sport, obviously the drivers make some difference but even with the rules its as much an engineering competition

Yeh, for sure.
Everyone gets a chance to run. You can be sure that Yusain Bolt is the fastest man on the planet. He's the fastest human out of about seven billion. Because everyone on the planet has a chance. If you could run faster than Bolt, there's nothing to stop you proving it.

But win the Forumula 1 championship, and you are the best out of about twenty people. And not even that, as only two or three teams have a car that could win it. So really, you're just the best out of six people at the most.
Nobody else on the planet stands a chance. It's a ''sport'' for a tiny elite.

[MrJonno]

It's more an engineering competition than a sport and there isn't anything really wrong with that, it pushes technology and people watching it seem to like it.

I think most sport is pretty pointless bar as an outlet for human more violent/competitive urges but formula 1 is no worse and in some ways better as it almost certainly contributes to general engineering

[Clinton Huxley]

Do jurors get their expenses?
A panel of six, compared to a jury of twelve might not cost that much more. And a jury needs looking after. And the technical evidence would have to go much slower for a jury who know nothing of the subject.
Speed up the process, and the whole thing would cost less, even if a few jurors got paid.
If you save one day of court time, that's an awful lot of money.

Good luck getting what would effectively be tax lawyers or their equivalent working for the renumeration that a juror currently gets.