I have been pondering the idea of having dual justice systems. One would be the standard justice system: police and courts where the workers are paid salaries and their job means a lot to them and to their families. The second justice system would be the “system of the people”, workers would be volunteer (or maybe paid for time worked) and would have another full-time job or be retired.
It seems our current justice system (most countries have virtually identical justice systems) is terrible at holding powerful wealthy people to account. It seems the average worker inside the standard justice system is too intimidated and afraid of the powerful people. The workers worry about their retirement plans and their promotions and continued paychecks, and powerful people can hold influence over those things.
I’ve already explored having a dual police system with my 2nd agency called the “Civil Defenders”, but I started thinking “why not add a court system to it?”, and then it could be the solution for how to hold powerful people to justice when the normal system will not. Volunteer Civil Defenders investigate a powerful man accused of raping children. They compile the evidence and present it to a volunteer judge. The judge issues an arrest warrant. Civil Defenders arrest the powerful man and place him in jail (maybe normal jail, maybe separate). The man stands trial in the volunteer run court and is sentenced to prison (normal or separate).
This wouldn’t only work for powerful wealthy people but also when the criminal works in the justice system as a cop or a judge or other position. We all know these systems are terrible at investigating themselves.
Some big issues are: how to have professional behavior in people who are volunteers, where to source the workers from, should court positions be elected, and how to pay for the system. I believe I have mostly solved these problems for the Civil Defenders, but the “Citizens Court” may require its own solutions.
How ironic but quite necessary, it works like the “special consul” is supposed to work here in the USA but on a volunteer basis maybe retired judges or lawyers could help the volunteers keep the proceedings be formal.
No matter how you look at it you have to have a credible judge on the bench otherwise your court has the appearance of a kangaroo sham court.
Appearances are important, but I don’t think it will be too hard to get this credibility.
I’m thinking it will be required to have some sort of certification before they can be in the position of judge or lawyer. Meaning there is a lawyer certification course and a judge certification course (maybe judges would have to do the lawyer course first and then the judge course), and people have to get the qualification first and then they can run to get elected as Citizen Court Judge or Citizen Court Prosecutor.
The Citizen Court will probably have to set up their own courses because they do not currently exist. With the help of AI, I think it will be easy to have a online-only course (maybe testing at a test center) and it will cost the taxpayer almost nothing once it is setup.
There will be some mandatory yearly training to keep up the certification. If the budget is large enough, it would be cool to send the incoming judge and prosecutor to another country (Nordic maybe) for a few weeks to observe trial proceedings there. I do think it will be important for the new country to setup relations with existing countries to receive help on setting up institutions. Like asking for the Iceland Police’s help in setting up the police dept, etc.
I propose a solution where the secondary system of courts and law enforcement are run by the free market.
Law enforcement would be a cooperating and competing network of Insurance and Protection agencies whom are held to the same checks and balances as any other free-market organization. Cooperation between agencies using a free-market court system would naturally be encouraged for financial and reputational factors. No one wants the be covered or employed by a warmongering agency. The financial constraints of war between agencies also discourages deep disagreement.
The process would look something like this:
A crime is committed. Let us say theft.
One’s Insurance and Protection Agency would immediately reimburse its policy-holder. To recoup these losses, the agency has a financial incentive to hunt down the criminal and extract restitution.
When the criminal is found, he is brought to a free-market court (or perhaps a public, state run court depending on circumstances like a lack of insurance policy held by the thief). The court provides arbitration between the the thief’s IPA and the victim’s IPA according to previously agreed upon rules between the two insurance agencies and, if the thief is guilty, restitution is paid to the victim’s IPA.
This system also allows for the expression of one’s own ethics being represented by the IPA. A person who does not agree with the death penalty, for instance, could choose to adopt a policy that does not enforce the death penalty (or only enforces it in certain cases).
I see no reason why this free-market alternative could not co-exist alongside a publicly funded law enforcement and court system so long as taxation is voluntary (which it is in LL).
In addition, these IPA would have a market incentive to pool resources and/or federate in times of war with other nations under the mutual interest of protecting policy-holders, providing a compliment to state-run defensive forces.
Murray Rothbard has pioneered thought in this area and his work is worth a look. This video is also a great explanation.
Colton this is an interesting idea. I watched the video and a steady stream of questions popped up in my head. The questions mostly centered around 2 areas: cost and motivation of the entities involved.
I believe that there must be estimated costs shown with such a system because this is a large reason why it might not work. For instance, the average person might only agree to 1-5% of their monthly earnings for such a insurance service. If we look at the average US income (AI says $41000) then 5% of that is about $170/month. If I looked into this idea further, I would use these numbers as a starting point to look at feasibility.
As per the motivations of the entities involved, they are profit-centered and I do not personally believe justice will ever emerge from profit-centered individuals. We could take our current US Congress as one example of a group of people that are (overall) individually profit centered and accomplish very little towards creating a good society.
I have worked alongside some good police officers and their sense of wanting justice transferred into every 911 call they ran. I would argue this was the dominant force pushing them forward during unpleasant calls. EMS and firefighters often have the same sense of civic service ensuring they do right by people who are often unpleasant.
In contrast to the above critiques, my system solves the following problems:
The average citizen feels they have no way to participate in govt, and a volunteer organization could offer that avenue. And it would retain civic-mindedness and desire for justice as primary motivations.
Since the labor would be volunteer, the costs of the system are extremely low. No one is milking the clock during an investigation trying to rack up extra hours, they are just trying to solve the crime.