UK - "Courts to be privatised in radical justice shake-up"

[JollyRoger]

Weren't many conservative Brits freaked out about the small amount of privatization that goes on via Sharia arbitration?

 

[Lord of Elves]

Fascinating. Great Britain may well be on its way to become the first anarcho-capitalist society. I'm not an ancap myself, but it would definitely be fun to observe.

Somalia-esque sectarian warfare in the streets, widespread famine, cannibalism, disease and societal collapse within the year. Ron Paul will elope and proclaim a Dictatorship of the Producers and Britain will sink into the sea/be invaded by France in a police action.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

I hope they do it and I hope they first leave the EU so big, bad Brussels can't thwart this preposterous endeavour and we won't need to pay them any subsidies when they fall behind Bulgaria.

 

[Mise]

Britain's legal system is one of the few things that's actually any good about this country, and the Tories seem determined to ruin that too. The courts simply have to be independent from any outside interest, be it the government or a private entity that owns its buildings. Imagine if the company who owned the buildings were sued in one of the court buildings they own. Talk about a conflict of interest! And how many other interests does the building-owning company have? What if the company who owns the buildings also owns another company, which then gets taken to court? And it's not just about ownership either, but about operations too. If Serco, say, won the bid to operate the court buildings (not the judges, just the junior staff), and Serco were hauled in front of the court on criminal charges, what independence would the judges have then? Surely Serco would have such vast sway over judges -- even if not directly on the payroll -- that judicial independence would go flying out of the window. Imagine if Rupert Murdoch decided to buy the court building that held competition law cases -- how would the judges be able to act independently, with such a powerful figure literally owning everything surrounding that judge? And then there's the incentives of going into law in the first place. We don't want to attract people who are motivated by money to a career in the law: we don't want to attract bankers and financiers, who think they can make a quick buck on the back of these new laws. We want to attract people motivated by justice. This is just a stupid, crazy proposal, that I desperately hope is indeed an opening gambit for something rather more mundane. Incredible.

 

[Traitorfish]

I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the entire cabinet is comprised of SNP sleeper-agents. Only way to make sense of this stuff.

 

[Virote_Considon]

I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the entire last three cabinets is comprised of SNP sleeper-agents. Only way to make sense of this stuff.

What? The cabinets of the heads of Families Blair, Brown and Cameron, SNP sleeper-agents?

 

[Peck of Arabia]

And they thought John Major's privitisation of the railways was the privitisation-too-far.

I'll see your railways and raise you- the legal system!

Sigh. I can't even muster up the neccesary indignation

 

[Traitorfish]

What? The cabinets of the heads of Families Blair, Brown and Cameron, SNP sleeper-agents?

No, Labour handled the Scottish question pretty ably. They were generally able to extend enough autonomy to the Scottish parliament to satisfy popular demand and do so in a manner which didn't increase nationalist sentiment, while maintaining a loyal (if increasingly disillusioned) base of working class voters, particularly in the West, through their support for education and public services. It's only in the last few years that Labour have really begun to lose their grip, and that's come not from incompetence or any hair-brained schemes, but precisely the readiness with which they adopted the "common sense" of austerity, allowing the SNP to position themselves not simply as a left-wing challenge to Labour but as the left-wing of Scottish politics itself.

 

[Flying Pig]

I should like to point out that Mr Grayling said 'go away and come up with ideas', and this came back - this isn't government policy and it's not going to happen.

Britain's legal system is one of the few things that's actually any good about this country, and the Tories seem determined to ruin that too. The courts simply have to be independent from any outside interest, be it the government or a private entity that owns its buildings. Imagine if the company who owned the buildings were sued in one of the court buildings they own. Talk about a conflict of interest!

And how many other interests does the building-owning company have? What if the company who owns the buildings also owns another company, which then gets taken to court? And it's not just about ownership either, but about operations too. If Serco, say, won the bid to operate the court buildings (not the judges, just the junior staff), and Serco were hauled in front of the court on criminal charges, what independence would the judges have then? Surely Serco would have such vast sway over judges -- even if not directly on the payroll -- that judicial independence would go flying out of the window.

Imagine if Rupert Murdoch decided to buy the court building that held competition law cases -- how would the judges be able to act independently, with such a powerful figure literally owning everything surrounding that judge?

How does this not apply when HM Government is a party in a case? We already have cases of judicial review and the like where private citizens are fighting a case against the State, and quite often the private citizen wins.

And then there's the incentives of going into law in the first place. We don't want to attract people who are motivated by money to a career in the law:

It's idealistic in the extreme to think that most bright young people with the world as their oyster going into law aren't thinking of the money. It's even more idealistic to think that they're still not working for the money ten years into the job, when the romance has worn off. Does the current system filter out people totally motivated by money? If so, what part of this is dependent on HM Government owning all of the court buildings?

 

[Akka]

I have a hard time believing that stuff is real.
If I saw such a thing in a fiction work, I'd laugh and say "it's just too ridiculous to be realist, come on".

 

[Mise]

Yes, because we have 1,000 years of constitutionally guaranteed judicial independence. The part of the government that owns and operates the courts is demonstrably independent from all other branches of the government. Most notably, we have a thing called separation of powers, which defines and limits the role of the courts and the role of the government. This is not only well established, but ancient; we know from experience that such constitutional arrangements mean not only judicial independence in principle, but also in practice. How confident are you -- how idealistic in the extreme, to use your words -- to think that a simple Royal Charter, like the one they used for the BBC, can adequately replace an ancient and constitutionally enshrined principle of justice? Secondly, the part of government that owns and operates the courts only own and operate one thing: the courts. There is very limited scope for conflict of interest, in contrast with for example Rupert Murdoch, who has an interest in a myriad different companies and potential court cases. Finally, the more money there is sloshing around in the system, the more incentive there is for people to succumb to corruption and greed. You only have to look at the financial services sector or professional football to see what happens when a system has too much cash in it.

 

[EvenStranger]

Somalia-esque sectarian warfare in the streets, widespread famine, cannibalism, disease and societal collapse within the year. Ron Paul will elope and proclaim a Dictatorship of the Producers and Britain will sink into the sea/be invaded by France in a police action.

I'm not an Ancap, but I think it would do a bit better than that.

 

[Ajidica]

I'm not an Ancap, but I think it would do a bit better than that.

I can't find the Yes Minister quote on youtube, but it springs to mind.
"[If we gave defense planning to the local councils] we wouldn't have to worry about the Russians any more. We'd have a civil war in three weeks!"

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Ah, I knew Britain would catch up to the rest of the Anglosphere with the free market-worship. Good to see you chaps around.

Around? They don't even bother with prison privatization to influence justice but go right at the courts. They ain't catching up but leaving you to smell their dust of liberty.