(02-13-2018, 01:13 PM)sandaoguo Wrote: Genuine question— how exactly does the Chief Justice/Associate Justices thing work differently from the pool?

The important differences, as I see it:

• The associate justices are not firewalled, while pool justices are firewalled to enter active judicial duty. That means you can appoint any player you deem capable of being a justice to be an associate justice regardless of whatever political or other roles they might be doing, and can contribute to the court. I'll give you an example - you are certainly a player who would be a good justice, but you may at some point be elected as MoFA again as well. If a case came up regarding, say, the LegComm act, then there shouldn't be a reason why you couldn't rule on that. Or even if you weren't even assigned to be a justice for any case, you could also still contribute by signing off opinions and compulsion of evidence.
  
• The associate justices are active components of the court, the pool justices are not. When a pool justice has to spring into action, and this is a justice that has not been in the High Court before, they are essentially thrown into cold water. An associate justice is already part of the workings of the court and therefore familiar with processes and procedures of the court set by law and by itself. Furthermore, this means that we automatically foster people that can become chief justice. We won't always get an immediately strong candidate like Kris, so we want to make sure that we have experienced members that can pick up where the departed chief justice left off.
  
• The chief justice is an associate justice promoted by their peers, while the permanent justice is selected by the Cabinet out of a vacuum to run the court from scratch. The difference here is that a newly minted chief justice already was part of the court (see the previous bullet point) and therefore has a running start.
  
• The chief justice directs the operation of the courts, while the permanent justice must run the entire court unilaterally. If the permanent justice has a busy week or two IRL, the court basically grinds to a halt. If the chief justice has such two weeks, it's not a problem because the associate justices are there as active components to the court. Furthermore, this allows fulfilling the wish that APC had long ago during the APC/TIL discussions that a ruling justice just has somebody else to look over and say "yup that works" as a simple but effective check.
  

There are others too but I can't think of them right now

(02-13-2018, 01:13 PM)sandaoguo Wrote: Will the Cabinet have just as difficult a time finding Associate Justices?

No. I was in Cabinet for both of the recent judicial appointments, and in each case the issue wasn't deciding who should be in the pool, but rather who should be the permanent justice. This shouldn't be an issue with the new model, as the chief justice will be selected by their peers and furthermore will be less intrinsically high-profile than the permanent justice is.

(02-13-2018, 01:13 PM)sandaoguo Wrote: Are these Justices privy to *all* court cases and discussions, or just the ones assigned to them?

That's internal structuring of the court, really. I see the legitimate concern that a non-firewalled non-assigned associate justice could see confidential information shared with the court that they are not authorized to see.

If your concern arises out of the 2015 debacle with TAC Saxton etc., then I think this issue wouldn't arise here. There is still one nominal justice responsible for the case, rather than three ruling together, the difference is simply that another justice is called in to look over the opinion and sign off on it.