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A Kritocracy is a government ruled by judges.

Perhaps the most famous instance of the use of the word was during a discussion between United States Supreme Court Justice Stanley Reed and his law clerk about Brown v. Board of Education. The clerk mentioned that the then still-evolving majority of the Court was reaching the "desirable" result. Reed thought that this observation was irrelevant and dangerous, for if judges voted for results merely because they privately struck the judges as desirable, the Court would overstep its jurisdiction and set the country on the path to Kritocracy.¹

A kritocracy should be contrasted with a kritarchy. Both are governments ruled by judges, but the difference lies in the manner of the judgment's conception. Judgments in a kritocracy are arrived at by the personal opinions of the judge, whereas judgments in a kritarchy are arrived at by judging whether a person's natural rights have been violated.

Examples

• Biblical (pre-Saul) Israel
• Medieval Sardinia
• Somalia under the Islamic Courts Union
• Mega-City One, fictional American future city, setting for the Judge Dredd series.

References

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The above article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the copyrighted Wikipedia "Kritocracy" article.