I suggest the problem is that the legislature is filled with cognitive dissonance on this issue, prepared to say one thing [in law] - for the votes - and do another - for the votes.
That requires the judiciary to sort out the mess.
I realize that there are grey areas, but the role of the judiciary isn't to be an legislature-of-last-resort. What are you going to do when the judiciary screws things up? Can't vote them out in most cases.
True, but in a common law system part of the role of the judiciary is to decide how the laws are interpreted. Civil system have a parallel set of problems; you can push the complexity around but you can't get rid of it.
That all said, times are desperate so if law makers are going to stick-in-the-mud I'm happy to see them overruled by the will of the people. I feel like we've gone past the point where we can reasonably discuss alternative market based solutions to climate change like carbon credits - and most conservative political blocks are still against even such a soft idea.
Art20a, Roughly translated: The state, in responsibility for future generations, protects the natural means of subsistence and the Animals in the constitutional order by use of legislative, excecutive and judiciary measures.
Of course this doesn't say verbatim to protect the climate but I think this is enough legislative basis to rule dangerous negligence on the matter of climate change unconstitutional.
I don't. But, they have to decide cases.
Part of the problem is that likely >>50% of people want some action to be taken to prevent climate change; and that likely >>50% of people don't support any particular specific action.
Democratically elected representatives (i.e. legislatures; and in particular two-party legislatures) have internationally failed to resolve this contradiction, and many have effectively passed both sides of this into law, in pursuit of votes.
Now, the judiciary must deal with this ambiguity.
If you don't want this to happen, then pay closer attention when politicians are playing for both sides of an issue, and challenge it more.
I'm unclear what you mean by 'sorted out' - there must ultimately be some outcome, as the judiciary in this case has given us.
Don't like a judiciary's decision? The democratic option is to go back to your representative and work to change the legislation, so that it's no longer ambiguous.
In the US there is extensive gerrymandering and just this year there's been a wave of anti-democratic voter restriction laws passed to try and prop up a dying party but, bigger than all of that, the lack of some alternative to FPTP[1] has forced extremism in the populace. Even in Canada with a parliamentary system that eschews direct elections of the head of state[2] there is still rampant strategic voting and low voter satisfaction.
We can't elect competent legislators because we don't have competent elections.
1. First-pass the post, i.e. whoever gets the most votes is declared the unanimous winner.
2. Well, the real one - not Queen Elizabeth II
I laugh every time I think to myself that my vote can make a difference.
I believe democracy works because we can vote out a government we can see is working against our interest. I don’t think democracy is that important for voting in a party for its policies.
I certainly have never experienced that I can vote in a particular policy I believe in.
Occasionally I think I can vote against a party that is pushing a policy I don’t like, but often the policy comes to fruition anyway (maybe delayed until the next change of government).
And I live in a country with MMP where my vote makes more of a difference than a two party system.
You work through your Representative. This requires patience, diligence, and a superhuman capacity to sink disappointment.
Occasionally though, you will see verbiage from one of your letters end up in a bill. So it does work.
Right now you have an electorate mostly equipped with near-instant communication and responsive to mass information campaigns, governed by a legislature that works at a snail's pace, lacking in adequate transparency, and with no direct linkage between the popular will and the legislative process; effectively a large complex machine which voters are given a limited right to kick every 2-4 years in hopes that this will rearrange the internals enough to make it functional. Individual congresses and executive branch administrations can be good or bad to varying degrees, but the system as a whole is simply not adequate for the governance of the society and economy that has grown up around it.
One to my Senator and it all instantly vanished.
Do you have any evidence for that or is that a guess? Corruption seems to have far more of an effect than just blaming people for not being smarter.
It's why most people vote for who is the most recognizable, or who is the tallest, or who had the most ads on TV, or who their family and friends vote for. The cost of informed voting is much higher than the benefit. It's just one example of the market failure of the political system. In other words, everyone does what's in their own self-interest, and we're all worse off as a result.
I guess I can vote in my local elections. Oh wait, the governer appears to be some kind of supervillian but everyone votes for him because of the (R) next to his name. Any more local and I can't find any information about any of them and just kind of guess what their policies are from what's written in their bios and maybe a newspaper article.
I try to be an informed citizen. Once in a while, someone who will actually make a substantial change locally makes it on the ballot. They always lose because this state votes republican no matter what.
I write emails to my governer and congress people once in a while. I always get a form letter back about how whatever the highest ranking republican wants is obviously the best course of action. I keep writing anyway so I can at least say I tried.
I don't have the time or the money or the influence to do anything but fill in the circles that don't make me nauseous.
Voting makes sense if you're trying to decide where to eat dinner in a group of five. It doesn't make sense to pick leaders to represent you in incomprehensibly complicated sets of unknown decisions.
Using the last election as an example, take Trump and Biden, and just consider one single choice, like their respective positions on the Iran nuclear deal. If I wanted to make an intelligent choice between Trump and Biden on this issue it seems like I'd have to know what they were likely to do regarding the Iran nuclear deal, and I don't trust either of them to tell me. I'd have to actually know what a good solution to the Iran nuclear deal is - but that seems like a question for intelligence analysts and geopolitical strategists to discuss likely implications of various choices. I'd have to weigh the morality of sanctions that hurt Iranian citizens versus the increased risk of regional or global nuclear war - which seems almost impossible to do. I'd have to be able to put the importance of the Iran nuclear deal into context against the broader set of foreign and domestic issues facing the would be President known and unknown to come up with something like "I like Trump's position on Iran but Biden has a better position on X, Y, and Z, and together those things are more important..."
It doesn't strike me as believable that most or even more than a negligible amount of voters are making informed choices like that. I think mostly people just vote the way their friends and family do, or vote for the person they like better, or vote based on the political and rhetorical games, or for the taller person, etc.
I don't believe this is a realistic goal. It is an idealistic goal, that we should strive for but will never actually happen.
That's called being a two faced lier.
Cognitive dissonance requires psychological stress as a driver of change in attitude.
Politicians seem incapable of changing their beliefs, typically because most of them are narcissistic.
Narcissism, self absorption general, and a lack of empathy, better explains why ploticians espouse differing beliefs depending on who and when the audience is.
Edit: fixed a word
(Paging 'dredmorbius; I'm way past my bedtime, and he knows this stuff better anyway.)
To paraphrase Stafford Beer.
But, it's easily possible for democratic representation to result in a set of contradicting laws without any dishonesty.
Suppose laws A, B and C are incompatible, but any pair is reasonable.
35% of representatives fundamentally support A and B [and not C];
35% support B and C;
30% support A and C.
All three such laws will pass with majority support, with everyone holding true to their represented beliefs - but the system is still at fault.
Especially in a common law country, this terminology is often off target.
My point was that the legislature is writing law which is in conflict with itself.
The quote "future generation" hasn't come from the judiciary - it is written into the law, for the judiciary to deal with the consequences.
Citation seriously needed.
> In our analysis based on 490 roll calls between 2005 and 2014 in the US House of Representatives, we find strong evidence that representatives are more likely to vote with special interests and against constituency interests when the two are in conflict. Importantly, the latter effect is significantly larger when there is less attention on politics.
Speaking of quick Google searches, the quote is from the first result when you search for “Do politicians vote with people's opinion or special interests”.
A judgeship is made up of one dipshit in robes. He represents his own opinion and may not have ever been elected by the people. If he “legislates” something into law like this, it’s tantamount to indirect despotism.
Really? In a huge number of legislative districts in my country, only one party is competitive, and there is little organized intraparty effort to mount a challenge at the primary stage.
The judiciary is an antimajoritarian institution. There are times when what the majority wants isn't a good thing, and also times when what it wants isn't implemented by the legislature.
Also, plenty of judges aren't dipshits. Plenty of legislators are.
Point is: arguing from the first principles of political structure isn't terribly convincing since political reality doesn't actually match those principles.
I bet you're actually a smart person who is quite familiar with the appeals process, precedent, the distinction between common and statute law, and so forth. But for some reason you've chosen to field this sort of well-poisoning argument instead.
Why do you consider my argument well-poisoning?
It wasn't, not really. And this is exactly my point:
Most countries have successfully legislated abortion law. The USA's federal legislature failed to do so directly and left it to their supreme court to decide something from their ambiguity: as is their job.
This decision can still today be written clearly into law, in either direction, by representatives. So, it's an ongoing failure of the legislature.
For one because rejecting laws on constitutional grounds is the main purpose of that court.
But more importantly, the court started it's argument with the observation that the german goverment and parliament committed themselves to the goal of co2 reduction, by signing and ratifying the kyoto protocol.
From that follows that it is quite unfair (unconstitutional even) to put the major portion of reductions towards the end of the deadline, effectively pushing the burden on younger generations.
Measured by their own standards and all that...
If the present day government has become ineffective or gridlocked, then it makes sense to me that the judiciary may have a role to play not in setting new policy, but at least in recognizing the intent of past leaders as encoded in existing laws.
... if lawmakers / govt. is not doing it for you, and you are aggrieved, aren't courts just another available means at a citizen's disposal, to effect change?
> The objects of the EPBC Act include providing for the protection of the environment, especially those aspects of the environment that are matters of “national environmental significance”: s 3(1)(a). Section 3(1)(b) states that a further object is the promotion of “ecologically sustainable development” through the conservation and “ecologically sustainable use” of natural resources.
> The following principles are principles of ecologically sustainable development:
> (c) the principle of inter-generational equity—that the present generation should ensure that the health, diversity and productivity of the environment is maintained or enhanced for the benefit of future generations;
sorry but how are courts at my disposal?
I'm reading the ruling and I see there only interpretation of the Australian law.
Things like:
150 The objects of the EPBC Act include providing for the protection of the environment, especially those aspects of the environment that are matters of “national environmental significance”: s 3(1)(a). Section 3(1)(b) states that a further object is the promotion of “ecologically sustainable development” through the conservation and “ecologically sustainable use” of natural resources. Each of those terms used in s 3(1)(b) is defined. Section 528 provides the meaning of “ecologically sustained use” as the “use of the natural resources within their capacity to sustain natural processes while maintaining the life-support systems of nature and ensuring that the benefit of the use to the present generation does not diminish the potential to meet the needs and aspirations of future generations”. The principles of “ecologically sustainable development” are given meaning by s 3A which provides:
Principles of ecologically sustainable development
The following principles are principles of ecologically sustainable development:
(a) decision-making processes should effectively integrate both long-term and short-term economic, environmental, social and equitable considerations;
(b) if there are threats of serious or irreversible environmental damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing measures to prevent environmental degradation;
(c) the principle of inter-generational equity—that the present generation should ensure that the health, diversity and productivity of the environment is maintained or enhanced for the benefit of future generations;
(d) the conservation of biological diversity and ecological integrity should be a fundamental consideration in decision-making;
(e) improved valuation, pricing and incentive mechanisms should be promoted.
The young generations (below 35) have basically no real demografic power and are underrepresented in politics. You saw that with covid and who was impacted the most and who will pay at the end of the day.