cabbage

European legal systems are largely built around the idea that courts are apolitical, and that judges make their decisions neutrally based on the word of the law and the facts of the case.

This is of course impossible, but some people—especially judges themselves—are afraid that the system would collapse if the public learned how political the work of courts really is. So when France started publishing all the judgments of their courts to the public, they also forbade the public from studying individual judges.

It’s pretty funky.

Of course, studying the performance of individual judges is criminalized in France, so we have very limited ability to know about their individual performance. :)

It’s a huge lie that judges are neutral, but some argue it’s a necessary lie.

Thanks for this! I will contribute for sure.

Edit: I would possibly revisit rule #2 though - making the rule more general, such as “no hate speech”, and specifying that proponents of any hateful ideologies should be excluded. Right now it’s strangely targeted - I guess “no antisemitism” goes under rule 1, but I think rule 2 should be wide enough to also cover “no nazis”.

Edit edit: As frustrated as I am by !europe@feddit.org, I think I’ll proceed with some hesitation.