[quote="Beathan":288lkuok]In the application, Ashcroft asks, essentially [quote:288lkuok]What is Justice? Answer in 750 words.[/quote:288lkuok] I'm not sure that my criticism requires more than this quotation. Last I checked, both Socrates and Diogenes spent lifetimes, and far more than 750 words, even trying to define this question without beginning to answer it.[/quote:288lkuok]
This is not a question of vagueness: the question "what is justice?" is very precise: it asks for an analysis of a particular concept. There is no vaguness in that. Your criticism is that answering it is too difficult, not that the question is too vague. I do not agree that the answer is difficult. There is a conceptual distinction between analysing a concept in the abstract, and providing a complete account of every last thing that that concept entails in practice. There is most certainly nothing overly onerous about asking candidates to exaplain what, in the abstract, they think that justice is ultimately all about. Those who cannot provide such an answer may wish to reconsider their suitability for an office that requires applying that concept to nearly every decision made. A person cannot very well apply a concept of which he or she has so little understanding that he or she cannot even answer a question asking what it is.
[quote:288lkuok]Also, Ashcroft indicates that he believes that he has responded to my criticisms, but that I have not replied. The problem is that, as I have said in my replies, I don't think Ashcroft has in fact provided any substantive responses to my criticisms. Rather, he has posted defenses of his process that do not actually respond to the criticism in any substantive way.
A case in point concerns my oberservation that, unlike an nomination and confirmation process, there is nothing in the current application that gets to critical issues of judicial character and temperament. These critical aspects of the office (aspects that I personally consider to me more critical aspects than the analytical abilities on which the examination focusses) are not addressed by the application process at all. To this criticism Ashcroft answers: (1) the statement of judicial qualification includes these issues and (2) these issues are particularly difficult or impossible to reveal through examination. However, this criticism makes rather than answers my point. To be qualified, judges mush have good judicial character and temperament, but there is no guarantee, even a slight guarantee, from the application process that our judges will have such character and temperament.[/quote:288lkuok]
I have provided a response to this that you have not paraphrased above: that is it that the [i:288lkuok]qualification[/i:288lkuok] process was never intended to be a complete assessment of a person's suitability to be a judge. It was intended to be part of a wider process. The PJSP's power to decide which of those qualified candidates are appointed completes the process. The role of the existing judiciary is ensuring that candidates have those elements of judicial skill (knowledge of the law, legal reasoning, general reasoning, ability to be practical in situations that might arise) that are best assessed by the existing judiciary, whereas the role of the PJSP is in assessing those characteristics (such as temprement and character) that can equally well be assessed by anyone with common-sense and judgment.
Furthermore, I have already explained that there is an important distinction between criticising the [i:288lkuok]constitutional framework[/i:288lkuok] of the process and the way in whcih the process is applied in practice. All of your criticisms so far in substance amount to criticisms of the latter type, yet, by writing of advantages and disadvantages in reletion to a "nomination/confirmation" process, you are claiming that they are of the former type. It is not clear why you have muddled the two, or why you have not responded to my earlier post where I pointed out that conflation.
[quote:288lkuok]Personally, I believe that each of Ashcroft's responses amounts to a similar analysis. "That might be a problem -- but the examination would be impossible otherwise, so I'm going to pretend it is not a problem." This response is only proper if we are deeply committed to examinations as qualifying tools. I see no reason to maintain that commitment, in the face of my criticism, when, as I point out, there are far better and far more nuanced and far less burdensome qualifying tools available.[/quote:288lkuok]
As far as I recall, you have not suggested alternative qualification [i:288lkuok]tools[/i:288lkuok] in this thread (I do not have time now to read back through all of it), but an alternative framework, that there is no basis for suggesting is in any way linked to the particular tools used. The only alternative tools that you have suggested is the process of choosing judges from people who have demonstated to the existing judiciary their ability over time by appearing as advocates in our courts, which I think is a very good idea, but cannot, of course, be applied for a process at a stage this early, before there have been any cases.