The merit selection is definitely NOT the answer to ending judicial corruption and ensuring impartial tribunals. Merit selection will not stop backroom deals and other favors to get on the bench. The only thing that will rescue the justice system in Pennsylvania, from the clutches of the organized crime family that controls it today- is intense oversight in every county.
Ombudsman or civilian advocates, paralegals or other trained individuals who have NO AFFILIATION with the local bar associations, must be given the power to carry out the control over the rogue judges that are wreaking hovoc on innocent victims- especially in the realm of the family court system. Racketeering by judges and attorneys, in places like the Montgomery County, Delaware County and Allegheny Courts of Common Pleas, supported by their brethren in the Appellate level- has run rampant and unchecked for years. Having their buddies in the General Assembly put them in office will only make political favors even more lucrative.
Mechanisms that will alleviate the massive fraud and theft now being perpetrated at the county level- would be limiting all divorces to 12 to 18 months- and any case that gets protracted longer than that would trigger an automatic review by the oversight committee- who should be given the power to impose monetary fines both the judges and the lawyers for extorting funds from vulernable litigants. These fines should go to the litigants who have had assets extorted from them by these common methods now being used by lawfirms, and facilitated by the judges that they put on the bench. Here are some more no brainers: