“Political Jurist.”
Question: what is the difference between a politician and a political jurist? Answer: one wears a robe. In fact, both are actually politicians, for both run for elections. What’s the political jurors or judge. think it’s fair to say all judges are political in the sense that they must be made judges by politicians who work in political systems.
What is a political jurist if he or she is elected by popular vote as is the case in Pennsylvania? Such is not the case in federal system where many judges serve for life and is called life tenure—or as long as they live. New Jersey has a similar system: after an initial election, once in, they also serve for life.
Under elected systems, vast amounts of money is donated usually by political action committees—known as PACs. How can a judge be fair to one side if that site has spent thousands of dollars that went into his election campaign and the other side has spent nothing. More importantly, how can such a system claim to be fair?
There’s an old saying: you get what you pay for. If you’re poor and can’t afford to contribute, you may also get what you pay or don’t pay for: nothing. The FOP has paid thousands of dollars to judges and politicians. Meanwhile, the poor paid nothing and get nothing.
From imprisoned nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.