Brexit.

[Innula Zenovka]

It's a popular opinion to disparage "career politicians" as a synonym for corruption, but what gets lost in that disdain is that legislating is actually a very demanding and complex profession. From all accounts that I've read of onboarding new legislators in the U.S., it can take their entire first year just to get oriented, to learn the rules, regulations and "how things are done" basics. They also learn a great deal from their more experienced peers, thus maintaining a body of institutional knowledge.

If you rotate every year, you get a mass of newbies wandering around asking "So where is the loo?" and "Are we allowed to do that?" and "Are you sure that's right?" while everyone stares back because they don't know the answer either. Then just as they finally get the hang of what they're doing, everyone leaves and you start the process all over again.

That's part of my concern about what I see as a confusion between the roles of a citizens' assembly and of a second chamber whose primary job it is to scrutinise and revise the primary legislation that turns the conclusions of that assembly into law.

As far as I'm concerned, it's a great advantage to have plenty of distinguished former MPs and Ministers in the Lords, precisely because they bring a wealth of experience and expertise with them, as do the various distinguished scientists, industrialists, business leaders, academics, and so on, who are awarded life peerages.

Yes, peerages do sometimes also get handed out apparently as rewards for generous donations to the party concerned, though I think the more usual reward for donors is a knighthood rather than a peerage, which nowadays are usually (though it would probably be fair to say not always) awarded on the assumption the recipient will, in fact, be a working peer rather than simply use the Lords as a club and turn up to vote when required.

However, looking at the role of the Lords as whole, I think they do a pretty good job as a second chamber, and I'm inclined to ask what people proposing changes to the Lords see that house's role legislative role as being and why they think their proposals would help the second chamber do that job any better than they do it at the moment.

The only life peer with whom I've had any connection, albeit indirect, was the mother of a university friend, who was awarded a life peerage by Margaret Thatcher.

My friend's mother had a record of distinguished public service in local government and as a prison visitor and member of various other official bodies, and was asked to become a member of the Lords because the Conservatives wanted a good, reliable, hardworking and competent junior minister to help get government business through, that business being generally to work with the opposition to come up with bipartisan amendments to address concerns that had been identified in the House of Commons and which the Government had accepted and promised to remedy in the Lords.

She accepted and served with quite some distinction, at times putting her expertise in both local government and penal reform to good use.

Obviously I didn't agree with her politics particularly, but I can see she did a pretty important job and I really don't see why her career in local politics should have debarred from her position.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Being a politician is a profession already.
Same goes with judgements. So I'm happy we don't have a jury system. Only professional judges and strict rules about what is proof/evidence and what not.

We in the UK have strict rules about what is proof and evidence, too, which our judges enforce in court, so only acceptable evidence is allowed to be put before the jury.

The jury in the UK is the judge of facts, not of law, and the question for jurors is generally "which aspects of which witnesses' evidence do you accept?"

Most criminal cases, after all, involve ordinary people describing what they say happened, and I don't see why professional judges would necessarily do a better job of deciding which parts of their accounts they accepted and which they didn't than do a group of 12 ordinary citizens asked to decide what they make of what the witnesses are telling them.

I've very rarely known juries to come back with verdicts I thought were wrong -- yes, I might have voted a different way from them, but I think only a handful of times have I thought they certainly got it wrong.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Short terms and term limits. Neocracy. Government by noob.

 

[Sid]

We in the UK have strict rules about what is proof and evidence, too, which our judges enforce in court, so only acceptable evidence is allowed to be put before the jury.

The jury in the UK is the judge of facts, not of law, and the question for jurors is generally "which aspects of which witnesses' evidence do you accept?"

Most criminal cases, after all, involve ordinary people describing what they say happened, and I don't see why professional judges would necessarily do a better job of deciding which parts of their accounts they accepted and which they didn't than do a group of 12 ordinary citizens asked to decide what they make of what the witnesses are telling them.

I've very rarely known juries to come back with verdicts I thought were wrong -- yes, I might have voted a different way from them, but I think only a handful of times have I thought they certainly got it wrong.

It is purely out of selfishness, that I'm happy that we don't have a jury system.

Take the case against Holleeder, one of the real big players in the Amsterdam criminal scene (he was the kidnapper of Freddy Heineken among other things), now convicted to a life in jail for 5 proven murders, one attempt and one manslaughter , but it took 60 court sessions in a high security bunker, about 600 witnesses, 1000 binders filled with about 500,000 pages of documents. Holleeder threatened his sisters and a crime journalist who testified against him, to get them killed .....

And then being part of a jury during such a trail?
No thanks.

I'm well educated, but I simply don't have the competence nor the ambition to be a member of such a jury.

Teachers do the teaching, dentists look after the teeth, bricklayers are in charge of the new driveway, Kamilah is in charge of improving my English, and judges and layers do the courts.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Bricklayers... Driveway? What is this European sorcery?

 

[Sid]

Bricklayers... Driveway? What is this European sorcery?

Ok, make that road worker.
I editted my post above a bit.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Don't forget that in the US judges are elected and basically anyone can run.

 

[Essence Lumin]

Don't forget that in the US judges are elected and basically anyone can run.

Federal judges are not elected and many state judges are not either.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

It is purely out of selfishness, that I'm happy that we don't have a jury system.

Take the case against Holleeder, one of the real big players in the Amsterdam criminal scene (he was the kidnapper of Freddy Heineken among other things), now convicted to a life in jail for 5 proven murders, one attempt and one manslaughter , but it took 60 court sessions in a high security bunker, about 600 witnesses, 1000 binders filled with about 500,000 pages of documents. Holleeder threatened his sisters and a crime journalist who testified against him, to get them killed .....
And then being part of a jury during such a trail?
No thanks.

The thing is that in a jury system in extrem cases there's a bunch of people judging on something where they got no expertise whatsoever, like e.g. patents.

Singapore was a British coloncy before becoming independent. Here's what one of the founding faters of Singapore has to say about jury systems, Lee Kuan Yew:

In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation, March 5, 1977, which his biographers include in full, the man who has done more than anyone else to create Singapore explains why he rejected Anglo-American system of trial by jury for his country despite the fact he trained as a lawyer at Cambridge. In his first case he was "was assigned to defend four murderers." Fleeing the Japanese, a Dutch woman had entrusted her daughter to a Malay muslim.

She came back after the war, reclaimed the daughter. The Chief Justice, then an Englishman, pending hearing of the case, sent the girl who had been converted into Islam to a convent to be looked after, and hell broke loose. The police force mutinied. Malays and Muslims took out their knives and a lot of white men, just because they were white, nothing to do with the case, were killed. These four men were accused of killing a Royal Air Force officer and his wife and child. They were travelling on a bus from RAF Changi down to town.

Lee Kuan Yew, who had been assigned the case, explains that he did what any advocate does: He "worked on the weaknesses of the jury -- their biases, their prejudices, their reluctance really to find four Mussulmen [Muslims] guilty of killing in cold blood or in a heat of great passion, religious passion, an RAF officer, his wife and child." And he employed "the simple tricks of advocacy -- contradictions between one witness and another, contradiction between a witness and his previous statement to the police and the preliminary enquiry."

When the jury acquitted the murderers, Lee Kuan Kew reports, "The judge was thoroughly disgusted. I went home feeling quite sick because I knew I'd discharged my duty as required of me, but I knew I had done wrong." He thereupon concluded that no government in which he had a say would employ this foreign, "foolish, completely incongruous system." Pointing out that the French and other Latin nations do not use trial by jury, Lee Kuan Kew argues that it is too "alien" to the basic social attitudes of many other cultures, including those of Asia.

In his Memoirs, Lee adds more detail, but the main points still hold. Thus, it turns out that the young barrister defended four out of fourteen defendants; he brought judge and jury to the scene of the murders at night, demonstrating how difficult recognizing individuals would have been in such conditions; and although "Chinese and Indian jurors were never happy to convict if it meant sending a man to his death," the evidence weighed heavily enough upon their consciences that they did in fact convict nine of the fourteen of "causing grievous hurt," though three of his own clients "got off scot-free" (144). In the Memoirs Lee also explains in more detail why he believed his clients guilty, but the conclusion he drew from this painful experience of the jury system remained the same: "I had no faith in a system that allowed the supersitition, ignorance, biases, and prejudics of seven jurymen to determine guilt or innocence" (144).

Even South Africa in 1969, while Apartheid was in full blossom, abolished them. Then again in only about 5 percent of the cases there is one jury. But still.

 

[Brenda Archer]

Federal judges are not elected and many state judges are not either.

No, they’re just picked from unqualified candidates by McConnell’s Senate, and then chosen for life.

The federal judiciary is being trashed.

 

[Tigger]

As far as I am concerned there are huge problems with the Lords. In no particular order
1) Position is for life.
2) There is no trace of democracy to the lords.
3) There are STILL almost 100 hereditary peers who can vote on our laws because of the accident of their birth. This should have ended a century ago at least.
4) There are 26 Bishops in the house of lords. This is discriminatory why should 1 religion get a say when none of the others do, but most of all NO religion should have a place in our law making process.
5) Political appointees come with political agendas.

If we replace the lords with an elected body we get a mirror of what we have in the commons. Where political parties insert themselves into the process and become the gatekeepers to power. The political parties, not the voters choose who gets voted in. Some of you may argue against that statement, insisting that the voters always choose but the reality is that in many areas a shop dummy would win the vote so long as it has the right colour rosette pinned to it. In more cases than not the party that chooses the candidate chooses the holder of the position. This is why there are 3 Johnson siblings who are MPs, because the Tory party selected them. There is no requirement to be fair in their selection process or to decide on merit so it goes to eton educated priveleged elites by default, perpetuating a form of unanswerable aristocracy which sits at the top of our political system and gifts us with stunningly ignorant and incompetent politicians.

The primary role of the 2nd house is to approve legislation passed in the commons. Anyone can do this. If experts and support staff are necessary, thats fine. But the decision making power should rest on ordinary people. Not party members, not party donors, not members of the financial, political or aristocratic elites. These need to be ordinary people. This will be the only place in our government where ordinary folk get to have a presence. To make sure that no political parties can take over the process it would be randomised within some parameters and members of political parties would be excluded by default. It creates a forum where, once legislation has been passed by the commons, they need to explain it, justify it and convince people of its necessity while their opposition has the opportunity to do the opposite. It is a sanity check and it needs to be out of the hands of the corrupting power of the parties.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Ok, make that road worker.
I editted my post above a bit.

Oh hey sorry about that, it wasn't an issue of English but rather a difference between Europe and America road paving methods. Commonly in Anglo North America there's asphalt and cement, sometimes concrete. Brick streets are usually a feature of the ancient part of the city, like, 1885. Brick driveways are usually a luxury option. Where brick is everywhere all over Europe, and it's lovely unless you have a mobility impediment.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

As far as I am concerned there are huge problems with the Lords. In no particular order
1) Position is for life.
2) There is no trace of democracy to the lords.
3) There are STILL almost 100 hereditary peers who can vote on our laws because of the accident of their birth. This should have ended a century ago at least.
4) There are 26 Bishops in the house of lords. This is discriminatory why should 1 religion get a say when none of the others do, but most of all NO religion should have a place in our law making process.
5) Political appointees come with political agendas.

Look we in Bavaria had a similar second body to our state parliament, which simply was called the senate. It consisted of 60 members which were elected/announced for six years by different associations, like unions, religions, social organisations, universities, cities and so on - so the people had no real influence about its members. He had an advisoral role mainly in the legislation process, which by a simple veto of the parliament could get overruled. Members of the senate could not be members of the parliament at the same time, so it was not as powerful as the House of Lords is.

It had a certain role in the legislation process, but its work was never well understood in public nor talked about. It's similar to vocational panels in the Irish parliament.

So in a binding referendum a big majority of voters decided to scrap it, because it was found largely to be undemocratic, unrepresentative for the population at that time, a waste of money and time- and so it was shut down in 2000. So far nobody is really missing it since.

 

[danielravennest]

I've very rarely known juries to come back with verdicts I thought were wrong -- yes, I might have voted a different way from them, but I think only a handful of times have I thought they certainly got it wrong.

In the US, we require a unanimous verdict by the jury, and for criminal cases the standard is "beyond a reasonable doubt". So the case has to be pretty strong to convince all of them.

 

[Essence Lumin]

In the US, we require a unanimous verdict by the jury, and for criminal cases the standard is "beyond a reasonable doubt". So the case has to be pretty strong to convince all of them.

Almost always, however you can be convicted of a felony in Oregon with only 10 out 12 jury members voting for it.

 

[Tigger]

Look we in Bavaria had a similar second body to our state parliament, which simply was called the senate. It consisted of 60 members which were elected/announced for six years by different associations, like unions, religions, social organisations, universities, cities and so on - so the people had no real influence about its members. He had an advisoral role mainly in the legislation process, which by a simple veto of the parliament could get overruled. Members of the senate could not be members of the parliament at the same time, so it was not as powerful as the House of Lords is.

It had a certain role in the legislation process, but its work was never well understood in public nor talked about. It's similar to vocational panels in the Irish parliament.

So in a binding referendum a big majority of voters decided to scrap it, because it was found largely to be undemocratic, unrepresentative for the population at that time, a waste of money and time- and so it was shut down in 2000. So far nobody is really missing it since.

I quite like the idea of a 2nd house scrutinising and reigning in the first house. The problem is the way it's constituted which excludes ordinary people entirely from the process. So what are the options

-We could vote, using the same first past the post system. As Innula has already pointed out this would lead to the same situation as in the commons where one party has a majority in the 2nd house and either rubber stamps everything from the commons or blocks everything from the commons because party politics.

-We could vote, using a form of PR, most likely resulting in no overall control of the 2nd house and a more reasoned set of responses to the legislation from the commons but still having large blocks of votes that follow the whipped party line.

-We leave it as is, because tradition, and decide that democracy doesn't really matter and we might as well just let political appointees, priests and people born to the right father control it.

-We do something radical and different we actually involve ordinary people in the process of legislation, giving them a direct and powerful say in how the country is governed, rewarding them well for their service and, with any luck, re-engaging regular people with politics and exposing them to the reality of what the government does.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Or the UK could do somehing even more radically, and reinstate the monarch as ruler again. But that's of course no option.

 

[Tigger]

That's part of my concern about what I see as a confusion between the roles of a citizens' assembly and of a second chamber whose primary job it is to scrutinise and revise the primary legislation that turns the conclusions of that assembly into law.

There is no confusion, I just don't have the single narrow definition of what a citizens assembly is that you do. You see a citizens assembly as being the start of the process, with the government then acting on its recommendations (or not).

I want it at the END of the process where it gets to make the final decision on the legislation proposed by the government. It's really that simple but you cannot get past your ingrained definition of what a citizens assembly is.

 

[Tigger]

It's a popular opinion to disparage "career politicians" as a synonym for corruption, but what gets lost in that disdain is that legislating is actually a very demanding and complex profession. From all accounts that I've read of onboarding new legislators in the U.S., it can take their entire first year just to get oriented, to learn the rules, regulations and "how things are done" basics. They also learn a great deal from their more experienced peers, thus maintaining a body of institutional knowledge.

If you rotate every year, you get a mass of newbies wandering around asking "So where is the loo?" and "Are we allowed to do that?" and "Are you sure that's right?" while everyone stares back because they don't know the answer either. Then just as they finally get the hang of what they're doing, everyone leaves and you start the process all over again.

You dont have to replace everyone at once. In uk local elections not every council seat changes at every election. You can replace half or a third of members at a time allowing for the transfer of skills and knowledge.

Secondly as this second chamber proposal is only reactive, it wont be initiating any legislation only examining that legislation that comes from the commons. It could be a "lower skilled" chamber.

 

[Tigger]

Or the UK could do somehing even more radically, and reinstate the monarch as ruler again. But that's of course no option.

Sure, and I'll join the revolution.

I want to replace undemocratic entities with more democratic ones, I want to take control out of the hands of the monarchy, the aristocracy, the church and political parties and get it into the hands of people.

For example I think the EU has things organised the right way, the Council sets policy, the Commission comes up with proposals to implement the policy and the Parliament approves or not. Final say lies with the most democratic part of the system.

In the UK we have an electoral system that tends to result in an overwhleming majority for a single party which, while it is required to get approval from the commons, usually has no issue in pushing its legislation through because its majority is large enough to essentially be a dictatorship this is then rubberstamped or reject by the least democratic part of our government.