The supreme court needs competition.

I will admit I know very little about the goings on of the supreme court. I only hear little tidbits here and there about how they presided over this case or refused to hear that case because of a technicality or something.

The supreme court doesn’t scale. There are 9 justices on the supreme court and that’s it. Every year there are more people, more businesses, more technology, more progress, more activities, more things in life that create grey areas that require decision making by our judicial leaders. But there will always only be 9 supreme court judges.

Maybe I misunderstand, but if the supreme court can choose not to see a case there is little recourse.
But imagine if there were 2 supreme courts. They would have to compete. One court by itself might choose to not take a case, but if there were another court able to do so, the first might compete to get the case so as to be the ones to try the case and make the decision that sets important precedent, or at least keep the other court from being able to do so if they think they wouldn’t like the result of the other court’s precedent.

Of course this idea is fraught with problems, and it would require a change in the constitution so it is unlikely to happen. The goal of the court would no longer be solely to provide justice but their motives might now include keeping the other court from providing their version of justice. Which sounds an awful like politics which is something our government needs less of, not more.

But it is an interesting and very american idea.

Leave a Reply