Should we elect our Judges

billy the squid

http://www.live95fm.ie/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=55918&pt=n

Sentencing adjourned in Limerick rape trial

Sentencing has been adjourned in the case of a Brazilian national found guilty of raping a female work colleague over a year ago.

The rape took place following a Christmas party at a Hotel in Clare in December 2003.

A cheer went up from the crowd in the public gallery following yesterday`s guilty verdict.

This morning in the Central Criminal Court which is sitting in Limerick, Mr Justice Paul Carney said he seriously considered excluding those who behaved like they were at a football match when the jury`s verdict came in.

At this point he asked a woman sitting in the public gallery to leave the court for sniggering.

He told the court that anyone who forgets where they are will go to the cells.

Mr Justice Carney adjourned sentencing in the case and released the Brazilian man on bail
until the 7th of March.

Ok this coupled with the lax sentence which was handed down to ray bourke has given me cause for concern.

in the story above the accused was a Brazillian national who was conviced of rape. yead the last paragraph, after being found guilty of rape he was released on bail until his sentencing, i mean what kind of carry-on is this. surely a person who is found guilty of a sex offence should be remanded in custody.

Personally I am of the opinion that the judges of this country have lost touch with reality, and it is now high time that we started thinking about holding elections for them, the risk of loosing their seat in the courthouse mioght snap them back into reality

A Dub in Glasgo

I would prefer to see the state appealing the leniency of some of the sentences more often and a 3 strikes and your out system brought in to catch judges who are so removed from reality that they continually apply lenient sentences in an inappropriate manner.

Nuttzz

Judges only apply the law, the laws need to be improved, for a start at least 15 years inside for kiddies fiddlers and rapists

arcadegame2004

Personally I am of the opinion that the judges of this country have lost touch with reality, and it is now high time that we started thinking about holding elections for them, the risk of loosing their seat in the courthouse mioght snap them back into reality

Sorry but electing judicial officials is simply NOT on. Experience in the US has shown the complete folly of elective judges.

A few months ago I saw a program I think either on one of the BBC channels or RTE which detailed the murder-case of a child named Jonbenet Ramsey in Colorado in the US. There, the police decided to almost straight away blame the parents and decide they had actually killed their daughter. Rumours were spread in the media that child-porn had been found in their house, and that the mother and father had beaten the child to death.

However, when the prosecutor assigned to the case was about to charge someone else, the state government in Denver sacked him. Then, the new prosecutor (I think his name was Michael Kane) tried to get the Court to declare inadmissable evidence that the parents were actually innocent, including DNA evidence that DNA not belonging to a member of the Ramsey family was found on the child's underwear, and evidence of a woman that the parents were telling the truth about an intruder having broken into the house and kidnapped Jonbenet before leaving a ransom note threatening to "execute" her. The police argued that the letter was written by Patti Ramsey (the child's mother) when in fact the handwriting did not match.

It has since emerged that the claims of child-porn being found in the house were a lie. When the Grand Jury convened to decide whether the actual evidence provided was sufficient to put the Ramsey's on trial, it determined it wasn't.

However, the damage has been done. The parents may now have to sell their home to pay for an operation Patti Ramsey needs due to her cancer. The media-circus has destroyed their reputations and they have no job.

I personally regard this as a damning indictment of elective judicial officialdom and the politicisation of the judicial system in parts of the US. We should definitely NOT import it into our country because the guilt or innocence of a suspect should not be determined by opinion-polls but on the strength of the actual (instead of rumoured) evidence.

monument

We should appoint judges in the same type of way Scotland appoints them as suggested on this episode of Primetime…

http://www.rte.ie/news/2004/1213/primetime.html

tintinr35

If the judiciary were elected,who would elect them? despite the fact that alot of power is placed in the hands of an unelected judiciary is there any real workable alternative. there will be mistakes made in every system elected or not. if elections were held who is to say bribary and fixing would not come into play and cause someone who could never have become a judge previously to enter the judiciary.
if it aint broke dont fix it

aidan_walsh

Half of me says that we couldn't do any worse that the lot that are currently there. The other half reminds me of what we've already elected in.

But as has been said before, judges only enforce whats already there. That said, the ever present differences in sentencing is something that does need to be looked at.

landser

one good arguement against elected judiciary:

Mr. Justice Jackie Healy-Ray

Zakalwe

No, we need to expand juducial review and we need to have sensible laws. I don't like the way some some people are looking at this issue. If we're not careful we could end up with mandatory sentence terms that on the outside look OK, but in practice can be a disaster.

Judges, like Senators, are best NOT elected.

Sand

Judges have to be absolutely independant of public opinion, only concerned with administering the law - the idea of electing them is sheer madness. Yes, justice is often seen not to be done but if the alternative is judges who sentence with one eye on the front page of the evening herald then I choose the current broken system.

Democracy is not the solution to *all* ills. It leaves proccesses and institutions that *need* to be remote/closed/unpopulist open to abuse, corruption and mob rule.

billy the squid

But you have to admit. releasing someone convicted of a sex crime on bail while he is waiting to be sentenced is a bit much considering the risk of re-offending while on bail.

monument

Yes, although we don’t know all the facts, it still sounds a bit much.

However, I think everyone who has posted so-far disagrees with the idea of elected judges, as it wouldn’t solve any problems in the court system, but create more.