The way the Republican majority of the US Senate treated the two last nominees by B. Obama and by D. Trump shows how political the process can be.
From La Fontaine, a French fabulist of the 17th: “Depending on whether you are powerful or miserable, court judgments will make you innocent or guilty.”
There is a pun, between the judiciary court and the king’s court.
In France, very roughly, we have 2 parallel systems of courts.
The first one, the judiciary system properly, treats the civil, criminal and, for instance, the disputes between employees and employers. The judiciary Supreme Court is “la Cour de Cassation” Court of Cassation.
Very roughly, the second one, the administrative courts, judges the cases involving civil service; most of the tax disputes and so. The Suprem Court is “le Conseil d’Etat”, the Council of State. Both institutions are derived from similar ones, existing in the times of the kings and reinstituted by Napoleon.
Most of the judges are recruited after university, by a national contest, with independent juries. Promotion is managed internally, with a system mixing seniority and merit. The political power does not interferes, except[GM1] for very high posts as president of one of the suprem Court, or general attorney at Paris.
Where the system becomes political is that we have over both system, a Constitutional Court, composed of 9 members, with 9 years mandates, 3 chosen by the President of the Republic, 3 by the President of the Senate, 3 by the president of the house of the deputies. The present president of the Constitutional Court is L. Fabius, an ex-Prime Minister of President Mitterrand
Surprisingly, even if many people reproach to the Court its excessive caution, it has not hesitated to cancel some important laws, including some related to the sanitary state of urgency.
Equal justice is a dream. We have a class justice, and individual magistrates work with their prejudices, their relationships.