Week 9: Judging Judiciaries
I spent the majority of this week researching the appointment of U.S. judges and judicial support staff. The research assignment is for a presentation NCSC will give to 16 Chinese judges from the Hubei Supreme Court. My task, along with the help of my fellow interns, was to research the history of judicial appointments in the U.S., provide models of state and federal appointment processes, and explain challenges of the appointment process and critiques of elected judiciaries. After compiling the research, I drafted a memo to send to my boss for review before the presentation. The presentation will take place next week, and I look forward to sitting in on it. In particular, this research assignment was interesting because I did not realize how many judicial selection processes there were in the states. For example, a lot of states use the Missouri Plan, which involves a judicial commission that creates a list of potential nominees, and the governor then appoints one of the candidates. Other states, like Illinois, use partisan elections. It was interesting to read about the history of the appointment process because states began shifting to an elected judiciary because they thought it would create a more independent judicial branch. Fearing encroachment from the other branches, states thought this was the better choice. Having an elected judiciary does allow for a more democratic process; however, elected judges may feel obligated to rule in favor of citizens or businesses who donated to their campaigns. Overall, elections can politicize the judiciary, which results in the opposite intended purpose of judiciaries. However, I also learned there are challenges to having an appointment process. Judges are not always appointed based off merit and expertise. As such, this undermines the integrity of the court, and judges may feel obligated to make decisions that favor the policies of their selector. Studying the pros and cons of judicial appointments in the U.S. is particularly relevant today, as many criticize how Supreme Court justices are nominated. With the media advancing these critiques, the entire country weighs in on judicial appointments, and it has certainly been politicized more in the past few years.
Aside from researching the appointment processes of judiciaries, I was also able to attend a presentation given by Judge Selamawit Girmay Birhane, a federal high court appellate judge in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. Judge Girmay Birhane presented on a leadership action plan she created to enhance the protection of children against abuse and violence in Ethiopia. In particular, the presentation focused on improving justice administration for juveniles by implementing various initiatives to further this goal. Prior to the presentation, I did not have much knowledge on the court system in Ethiopia so it was a great learning experience to hear from such an accomplished woman and her incredible state plan to improve juvenile justice in her country.
As usual, this week went by pretty fast. Next week is my last week at NCSC, and it is packed with last minute assignments. There will also be three presentations- two from NCSC staff and the third from us interns on our final research project. I still have a lot to do with this presentation as we got side tracked with more pressing assignments, but I look forward to putting everything together and having the opportunity to engage in discussion with the rest of the staff.