Quality of Law Tribunal

This proposal is an attempt to supplement (not substitute) existing methods with the momentum produced in litigation. Public, fair and adversarial dispute resolution is a terrific machine for unlocking information, focusing attention, and educating the public.

I think one of the reasons for the current failure is that we don’t have a forum or tool that would combine several features at the same time:

• give voice to social or economic interests which are affected by quality of law;
• be open as to standing for citizens and organizations, even if there is no “legal” interest involved;
• allow for structured discussion;
• produce clear cut conclusions;
• warrant credibility of findings as to the subject matter;
• focus mainstream public interest around the results.

The Tribunal could serve as such tool.

It should apply highly adversarial procedure. 

Its visibility and political significance would depend on the participation of first class thinkers and political heavy-weights.

The Quality of Law Tribunal should draw from the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Tribunal. Quality of law is part of the constitutional standard applied by the Constitutional Tribunal. But the decisions of the Quality of Law Tribunal would be merely political facts, so the review applied by this court could be more expansive than that of the Constitutional Tribunal. Because of the formally non-binding character of its judgments, the Quality of Law Tribunal could be allowed to show less deference to the lawmaker as regards the subject matter of law, policy decisions, and the political will behind the law.

The institutional and procedural design of the Tribunal would have to strike the balance between the open character of the court and manageability of caseload. It is hard to predict right now whether the volume of litigation would constitute a problem, but this is plausible, and would definitely require attention at the conceptual stage.

An important role can be played by the Academia in organizing interdisciplinary student workshops that challenge laws as part of clinical curriculum.