Bring the marketplace to the justice system

[Pron Haul]

The modern justice system is plagued by an inefficient bureacratic leviathan that hovers over one of the most pristine, American institutions the justice system:


Private Courts
By Shannon P. Duffy
Posted on 4/14/1999
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The Legal Intelligencer
April 14, 1999
Patently Obvious
By Shannon P. Duffy
U.S. Courthouse Correspondent

Promising to slash the costs of litigating patent cases–both in money and time–a group of in-house and private patent lawyers are touring the country to persuade their colleagues to join the newly formed National Patent Board.

Dubbed ``a court of first resort,'' the NPB is the brain-child of Jacobus ``Koos'' Rasser, Procter & Gamble's vice president and general counsel in charge of patents worldwide. As the mother of all intellectual property ADRs, the NPB says it can cut the average costs of battling over a patent from $1.5 million down to $100,000.

And it's over in six months. That's a promise.

So far, industry seems extremely enthusiastic. Computer chip giant Intel Corp. has signed on, along with General Electric, Mobil, DuPont, Rohm & Haas and Hewlitt Packard.

Full story can be found here:

http://www.mises.org/story/197

I have long been a proponent of fully privatized courts here in the United States. I don't consider there to be any conflict between the principle of private courts and Article III of the Constitution, which establishes the Supreme Court and defines its parameters. I personally favor a system of private courts that would operate under the supervision of the Supreme Court and other federal and local courts, which would have appellate powers, and I do not believe this would conflict with the Constitution or the intentions of the men who wrote it.

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed, and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.
-Alexander Hamilton

[FrankRep]

There are bigger issues we must deal with first.

[nate895]

That is ridiculous, the courts are one of the essential arms of government. There is no place for a private court system, since it can never have the consent of the governed because it has no authority to do so. The idea of private courts are contrary to the principles of natural law, since they are beholden to whoever owns them, and therefore can only have authority over them, and don't say that everyone should own them then, since a government court is owned by all of us as citizens.

[Pron Haul]

There are bigger issues we must deal with first.

Well, obviously but do you agree this would an end result worth striving for?

[FrankRep]

Well, obviously but do you agree this would an end result worth striving for?

I vote NO on privatizing courts.

[Pron Haul]

That is ridiculous, the courts are one of the essential arms of government. There is no place for a private court system, since it can never have the consent of the governed because it has no authority to do so. The idea of private courts are contrary to the principles of natural law, since they are beholden to whoever owns them, and therefore can only have authority over them, and don't say that everyone should own them then, since a government court is owned by all of us as citizens.

I'm not arguing for total privatization here, as that would indisputably be ridiculous, but the court system has done a very poor job representing the ideals of the people it governs lately. I believe that introducing the free market's invisible hand into the legal system, in a limited and checked manner, would rectify this somewhat.

[nate895]

I'm not arguing for total privatization here, as that would indisputably be ridiculous, but the court system has done a very poor job representing the ideals of the people it governs lately. I believe that introducing the free market's invisible hand into the legal system, in a limited and checked manner, would rectify this somewhat.

That makes no sense because the officers of a court must be appointed by one source or another, and that is the power in the courtroom. There is also no room for competition in the court system since that brings in jurisdictional problems.

[FrankRep]

...the court system has done a very poor job representing the ideals of the people.

People need to elect better Judges.

[Pron Haul]

People need to elect better Judges.

If judges were elected, that may go a long way toward solving the problem as well, but the vast majority of judges in the United States are appointed. And on second thought, I'm not sure whether electing judges would help or hurt considering the kind of people we DO elect. Market mechanisms seem to be the only possible way to optimize efficiency.

[nate895]

If judges were elected, that may go a long way toward solving the problem as well, but the vast majority of judges in the United States are appointed. And on second thought, I'm not sure whether electing judges would help or hurt considering the kind of people we DO elect. Market mechanisms seem to be the only possible way to optimize efficiency.

One size fits all solution: elect good politicians to every office, and if you're too stupid to do that, you deserve whatever happens because of it.

[Kludge]

I believe that, ideally, we'd have "funds" that you could pay into. If you donated at least $50 to the judiciary fund, you could participate in a DIRECT vote for all employers (they'd list their selected staff on the ballot) of your local, state and national court system.

[constituent]

Market mechanisms seem to be the only possible way to optimize efficiency.

which ones and how?

[CountryboyRonPaul]

If you had competing Courts, then you would have opposing rulings, and who's to say which one would be upheld by the Police?

It just doesn't make any sense how you can have more than one Justice System, one would inevitably have to hold authority over the other one.

[IcyPeaceMaker]

No court can control this government, the Sup. Ct. just abdicated it's primary function, interpetation of the U.S. Constitution, in We the People -VS- United States (concerning the last ten words of the first amendment, the right to petition).

Since advocating the overthrow of the government is a felony, we must attack via the ballot box. That means staying involved in the Republican party and bring it back to the constitution, thereby enabling us to change laws and criminilize treason as it is now being perpetrated against Americans.

One more VERY important point, those advocating this in the first post are ALL zionists, that alone should set bells and whistles in your head!

[H Roark]

NO! This is soo absurd, anytime a private company colludes (carries out the governments directives) in order to attain a profit is clearly a violation of the free-market principal. Laws are not private (whether local or federal), so why should the court system that administers them be. I'm not going to be sentenced by some judge that gets a profit off my guilty verdict or whatever scheme the company employs! Think like a business owner would... You'll get a speedy trial, maybe too speedy...

This same standard can be applied to a privatized military as well. You can't get any closer to fascism than this... This is why pro-war/neo-con LIBERTARIANS (all caps) are the scariest thing in the world. It is the ultimate marriage of state and private interests.

Here is a novel idea, how about electing officials and judges that abide by the constitution!?