[General] Judges should recuse

[Silverobama]

Hi.

Is the following sentence natural? Would native speakers use it? It's from an old Chinese-English dictionary and the author might be the writer of the dictionary.

Judges should recuse themselves from cases in which a party contributed significantly to their campaigns.

According to the Chinese meaning, the judge was elected.

 

[Yankee]

It's fine.

 

[teechar]

It's a strange sentence. I don't see an obvious connection between its two parts. I suggest you just forget about it.

 

[tedmc]

It depends on what the "campaigns" are about but it smacks of a conflict of interests which ordinarily is a reason for judges to recuse themselves.

 

[Tarheel]

I would rephrase it thusly:

Judges should recuse themselves from cases which might involve a conflict of interest, for example one or more of the parties contributed to one or more of the judge's political campaigns.

 

[Silverobama]

Sorry I couldn't use my VPN (expired) when posting this thread. Now I found its source. An American site.

 

[probus]

Sorry I couldn't use my VPN (expired) when posting this thread. Now I found its source. An American site.

That makes sense. The United States is the only country I can think of where some judges are elected by popular vote. In most jurisdictions judges are appointed and therefore need not concern themselves with campaigning or raising money to campaign.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

It's not conversational English, but it's natural written English.

I don't know what you mean by "the judge was elected."

 

[tedmc]

It's not conversational English, but it's natural written English.

I don't know what you mean by "the judge was elected."

I think it means that an election is held and the judge is voted to office, like other politicians. The position is not just based on merit or competence but also the candidate's popularity. In other countries, the judges are appointed by the Executive arm of the government.

 

[Tdol]

They are not elected in the UK.