Yesterday I reported that the New York Times has kicked off its special report on arbitration with Part I, an article entitled “Arbitration Everywhere, Stacking the Deck of Justice.” The NYT has now moved on with Part II, “Privatizing Justice,” and Part III, “In Religious Arbitration, Scripture Is The Rule Of Law.”
The article on privatizing justice presents a litany of problems with arbitration. Though the article does not exactly describe what “privatizing justice” means, it circles around certain aspects of arbitration: the loss of judges and juries, the secretive nature of arbitration in a system where cases need not be reported and proceedings are confidential, the common perception that unlike judges, arbitrators are “beholden to companies” that are their real clients, and the inability to effectively appeal bad awards. The authors’ point of view appears to be that if sunlight is the best disinfectant, then arbitration is a black hole.
The article on religious arbitration presents some interesting examples involving Christian arbitration, as well as Scientology arbitration. The article points out that in addition to the usual inability to review arbitration awards for mistakes of law or fact, judges will not review religious arbitration awards for fear of church-state entanglement issues.
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