He's trying to "put the court on a more professional and full-time footing", by appointing "a slew of other cardinals without canonical or other legal experience to serve as the court’s judges" even though "Vatican law requires that the court be led by the cardinal president of the Church’s highest canonical court, the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, and that a majority of the court’s judges be made up of cardinals from the signatura"?
How do you get more professional judges by appointing people without legal experience? Did the courts previously have a bunch of empty offices?
Let's rephrase the question: How can you have a professional diplomatic corps when Presidents of both parties have named major donors as Ambassadors to key allies?
Because those individuals are not the ones doing the actual work. They are figureheads.
In the same way, these Cardinals are not the ones doing the actual "judging." Their role is essentially to provide high level political protection and advocacy. In the same way that Charles H. Price had no diplomatic experience before he became an Ambassador. Rather his value was that he had high level political connections in the Reagan administration.
Maybe I don't understand how the Vatican courts work, and they call people judges who aren't actually judges, and the highest court doesn't actually make any legal decisions.
But the Pillar has specified in other articles that the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura is the court of appeals for everything, making it more like the Supreme Court, and less like a figurehead ambassador. The need for political clout was generally met by appointing cardinals with legal experience, rather than, say, telling a priest or layperson to investigate a cardinal. One could ask how we got to the point where none of the cardinals with legal experience have any political power.
I see how what you say *could* work. I just don't see anything that says that is how it *does* work.
You need to completely throw out any preconceptions you have from the way the legal system works in an English Common Law based system (U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, etc.)
The Roman law based systems operate on a completely different structure and procedure.
There is no comparison with the U.S. Supreme Court and the Judges have more of an executive or legislative function as opposed to hearing cases; and the Signatura hears a trivial number of cases.
“ Francis also named a slew of other cardinals without canonical or other legal experience to serve as the court’s judges”…..gives me so much confidence….hope….What is the deal?
He's trying to "put the court on a more professional and full-time footing", by appointing "a slew of other cardinals without canonical or other legal experience to serve as the court’s judges" even though "Vatican law requires that the court be led by the cardinal president of the Church’s highest canonical court, the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, and that a majority of the court’s judges be made up of cardinals from the signatura"?
How do you get more professional judges by appointing people without legal experience? Did the courts previously have a bunch of empty offices?
Let's rephrase the question: How can you have a professional diplomatic corps when Presidents of both parties have named major donors as Ambassadors to key allies?
Because those individuals are not the ones doing the actual work. They are figureheads.
In the same way, these Cardinals are not the ones doing the actual "judging." Their role is essentially to provide high level political protection and advocacy. In the same way that Charles H. Price had no diplomatic experience before he became an Ambassador. Rather his value was that he had high level political connections in the Reagan administration.
Same thing here.
Maybe I don't understand how the Vatican courts work, and they call people judges who aren't actually judges, and the highest court doesn't actually make any legal decisions.
But the Pillar has specified in other articles that the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura is the court of appeals for everything, making it more like the Supreme Court, and less like a figurehead ambassador. The need for political clout was generally met by appointing cardinals with legal experience, rather than, say, telling a priest or layperson to investigate a cardinal. One could ask how we got to the point where none of the cardinals with legal experience have any political power.
I see how what you say *could* work. I just don't see anything that says that is how it *does* work.
You need to completely throw out any preconceptions you have from the way the legal system works in an English Common Law based system (U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, etc.)
The Roman law based systems operate on a completely different structure and procedure.
There is no comparison with the U.S. Supreme Court and the Judges have more of an executive or legislative function as opposed to hearing cases; and the Signatura hears a trivial number of cases.
As I said, I can see that it could be like that.
Where do I find that out? If I were to take an informal poll of people on English-speaking comboxes, I expect it would not turn out well.
“ Francis also named a slew of other cardinals without canonical or other legal experience to serve as the court’s judges”…..gives me so much confidence….hope….What is the deal?