Imagine you have just been selected by a national computer system because of your knowledge and experience at law to participate as a Jurist in the determination of the concurring and dissenting opinions of a Supreme Court Case. Your expertise in the specific area of the case was also a reason for you being chosen although others without your specific expertise were also chosen to balance out the entire group, the “Supreme Court Review Board” (SCRB) a part of the Association of Jurists, that will be making the final determination. The case has been tried by the current Supreme Court Judges (SCJ) but their opinions have not yet been issued or published by the court.
You have the right at this point to accept the case, at which point you will be emailed, through a highly encrypted computer transfer system, the transcripts of the entire case. The entire process will take 30 days, with the exception of, if additional testimony is desired by a high percentage of the selected Jurists of the SCRB. You will be working with a large number of other Jurists in anonymity, selected in the same manner, with all 50 States of our great nation being proportionally represented.
You will have the opportunity to work in both a private by request only blog, or public blogs that you can either start yourself, participate in one or more blogs of others, or both. All blogging will be done under total anonymity with Avatars/user names as identification until the final vote and publishing of the determinations.
After 10 days, everyone that has written a concurring or dissenting opinion will be prompted to post their existing opinions, “as is” to the main voting page and everyone will have 5 days to read the various opinions and make an initial vote for the position they would make if this were the final vote tally. The most popular concurring and dissenting opinions will rise to the top of their respective categories on the page and the next most popular in each category will rise to the second position, the third in the next position and so on. At this point, there may be a number of both concurring and dissenting opinions, but everyone will know how the majority has voted, as the number of total votes garnered by each opinion will be posted next to the opinion. Only 1 vote per individual is tallied and every Jurist must have a vote in place at all times after the 1st vote. The desire is to have a good idea which opinion is doing the best at any particular time. Yet, remember that only that individual or group that participated in writing the opinion really knows whose opinion is leading the voting and how many votes they have. Once the final vote is concluded on day 30, all names and the majority opinions will then be published.
There is now 10 days left for everyone, still operating under anonymity, to assist in perfecting the opinion they favor. Everyone will now know what opinion has the largest majority of voters in both categories, concurring and dissenting. Individual can still continue their collaborations however the individual or group that posted the opinion will have the final deciding determination for their opinion. That does not prohibit others from improving the lesser vote recipient’s opinions, determined during the 1st vote, but only the top five recipients in each category will be allowed to post their final opinion before a final vote is conducted.
The desire is to want this entire process to be competitive, in that those that participate the most and write/sponsor/vote for the better and majority opinions receive points under some form of merit system, yet to be determined. The SCRB Jurist may also change their vote anytime after the first vote to any of the other posted opinions, but only 1 vote per individual is tallied and every Jurist must have a vote placed at all times after the first vote. The desire is to have a good idea which opinion is going the best, as time goes on. Yet, we do not want to detract from the opportunity of having an initial opinion that does not garner much attention during the 1st vote from being improved to such an extent that it could garner the eventual majority opinion when the final vote is made.
The contention of the existing team for this project is that the existing system is broken. That there are two few individuals that have the final decision making power over the rule of law of most nations, as they all suffer the same or very similar social problems. That by expanding the number of Jurists that are the final arbiters in cases of a Constitution nature, that a majority of the population will be better represented.
This system will require the effort of many with numerous testing, alterations, more testing and the assistance of public opinion. Something surely needs to be done and we believe that this system should at least be tested against the current system to determine efficacy and the quality of the potential results in comparison to the existing system. By taking on real life cases, the system can be tested against the current Supreme Court and as the system itself is improved, it is our opinion, that the results should be superior, if a system can be created that better promotes Equality and Justice through a direct democratic vote of a voluntary association.