Re: Switch the burden of proof?
The U.S. system mostly works like that, but they currently make it easy to allege something justifying an appeal, including failure to correctly interpret law or case law on the part of a jury who likely doesn't know it. There are three general solutions to this problem, and each come with downsides which could potentially be significant:
1. Make it difficult to get grounds for appeal on anything other than intentional mishandling by the judge or judges. This would reduce the case load of useless cases. This could result in a situation where an incompetent or unjust judge gets to do what they like without much risk of having their judgements overturned, which could produce injustice.
2. Make it easy to get grounds for appeal. This would make it easier for a problem somewhere in the legal system to produce only short-term consequences and be evident to those responsible for trying to fix it. It produces an absurd number of cases and could throw the judicial system into paralysis.
3. Make laws easier for the general public to understand and require the same of contracts, patents, and other similar components of the legal system by limiting the scope of any particular part and requiring the drafter of the law, contract, etc. to fill out clarifying details. This would reduce the likelihood of misinterpretation allegations to be taken seriously. This runs the very serious risks that someone might understand what they were agreeing to and what restrictions applied to them. Because of these risks, this alternative is clearly very dangerous and therefore probably won't be put in place.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
