Letters: Electing judges has merit

ISSUE | JUDGES

Power to the people

Rebecca Love Kourlis makes a compelling argument for judicial merit selection ("Opening creates a chance to try judicial merit selection," Wednesday). But she ignores a downside of judicial appointment: government by proclamation. Some of the most important issues of our time (such as abortion and gay marriage) were not decided by the people but proclaimed by an appointed federal judiciary. A person can be pro-choice and nonjudgmental and still see judicial proclamation as an abuse. Where will society turn for redress when some "forward-looking" jurist decides that free speech impedes domestic tranquillity?

Until we can convince judges that their role is interpretation rather than proclamation, the people of Pennsylvania should continue to choose their judges. In a democracy, those who make the laws should stand for election.

Mike Egan, Philadelphia, mchlegan@gmail.com

Politics still supreme

Once again, the Inquirer is pounding the drum for so-called merit selection of judges. Recently, Rebecca Love Kourlis advocated for a process in which a commission would vet judicial candidates and submit them to the governor. This would supposedly yield less political, more qualified judges.

This ignores Americans' experience with the U.S. Supreme Court. In Bush v. Gore, Citizens United, and other decisions, it is obvious that the unelected justices have been politically motivated to shape the country in their conservative image. Merit selection is just code for taking choices away from voters and putting them in the hands of vested interests.

Louis Agre, Philadelphia