While the USA is a relatively young country, it’s oddly one of the oldest democracies.

I believe most other democracies have better-written laws and better checks and balances because, in part, of mistakes the founders made when writing the US constitution (which was always a highly imperfect compromise, allowed for slavery, and had to be ammended several times just to patch it up).

Hopefully someone more knowledgeable will chime in. But I think the shitshow we call the SCOTUS is somewhat unique.

In the case of Colombia, there are independent investigation agencies that aren’t subject to any of the three branches, and specifically the judiciary branch has a committee that investigates disciplinary trespasses by judges. Also, there are three separate “Supreme Courts”: one handles typical everyday cases, another handles conflicts between citizens and the government, and another handles Constitutional violations. So there are several protections against a rogue Court.

much less than the US supreme court, which allows for corruption and has lifetime appointments.

It’s easy to think about the US supreme Court versus other high courts the same way that the US treats voting districts.

In almost every country with a similar voting system, gerrymandering, dividing up districts arbitrarily, is illegal because you can easily say well. I’m going to divide it like this so that only these people’s votes count and I’ll just ignore the voters that I don’t like.

That is illegal in most western countries.

Gerrymandering is perfectly legal in the US, resulting in a far weaker vote because entire counties can be disregarded by dividing the county up cleverly to benefit the Republicans, who take far greater advantage of this.

Same with the court systems, the US didn’t set up protections and hasn’t modifed or improved the court as time has gone on and problems have arisen like direct bribery or contradicting rulings or politically refusing justice appointments.

All of them.

It can happen here. It’s frighteningly easy to get to this point.

Other places haven’t come anywhere near the politicisation that the US has. Instead, appointments are treated as pretty meritocratic.

I’ve personally spoken to a former chief justice of a country about the selection process, and they said unequivocally that it should be taken away from the government. It should instead be done by an intermediate selection committee whose members are selected by the government. Basically creating a degree of separation between the government and the court to buffer against politicking the whole thing.

Makes perfect sense to me and is probably the best chance the US has apart from packing the court.

Otherwise, without knowing much about the US situation, it seems to be in part attributable to the polarisation of the strict two party system, the central quasi-monarchical presidency and the vagueness and hearheat of the bill of rights. Lots of places just don’t have that combination of factors … where in same ways the US system is likely showing its age and lack of evolution over time.

In fact, generally, it might be true to say that US politics over the past 10 years and into the next century will be driven by the friction between needing to adapt to its new state in the world (less super power and more dependent on global affairs) and wanting to cling to its traditional role and the old promises of the post-war era.

In a non first past the post voting system, it’s less likely that 1 radical party remains in power long enough to screw up the high courts. But it can still happen, case in point Hungary and Poland.

Iirc, Orban had been in power for many years in Hungary and went for a gradual erosion of the independence of the courts. Death by a thousand cuts.

Pis in Poland only had a majority for 2 election cycles, but they needed only the first win to screw up the courts. Instead of a gradual (legalistic) takeover, they went for a bonkers hostile takeover of the supreme courts: https://freedomhouse.org/report/analytical-brief/2018/hostile-takeover-how-law-and-justice-captured-polands-courts

The eu should have kicked out both states out of the decision making process and implemented sanctions, but since that required unanimity, Poland and Hungary were essentially protecting each other from consequences. Now that pis lost in Poland, I hope that the eu takes action and prevents this from happening again.

How vulnerable

More than you would think.

While the most systems are built more robust than the Us one, it is still a sad fact that fascism / totalitarism is on the rise in many countries currently. Even robust systems are vulnerable.

Italy has been in the hands of one man recently who owned all the press and the better part of the state, and he transformed it into a puppet show. He is gone but the country is still suffering.

Austria was on the brink only a few years ago. One man had nearly owned the 3 powers legislature, executive and judiciary. Only a strong scandal in the press has saved the country.

In Switzerland we don’t really have a supreme court in the sense the US have one, parliament decides if they follow the constitution or not. The federal court only decides if the lower courts applied the law correctly. They don’t even take cases with plaintiffs and defendants.

If you were to design a government system from scrstch, knowing what you see now, where would you place a Supreme Court?

French constitutional court is allowing ministers to vote in the parliament if their resignation has been accepted. It’s a fun combo because it involves all 3 powers : executive, legislative and judiciary.