Cognitive Copyright Disorder
A little cognitive dissonance. Why should I have to accept that a judge must be impartial and have some training in law when under DMCA a biased copyright owner can judge whether or not I correctly applied "fair use" in a blog post?
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The "biased copyright owner" is asserting his property right, and giving the other party notice to take it down else there will be legal consequences. Whether that notice is served on you, or the service provider depends on the circumstances which may provide extra steps. Supposing at the end there exists a controversy over whether a material was fair use, the aggrieve party could then sue the other to defend their interest. It's not that the "biased copyright owner" gets to decide. If you are talking about certain hive users/bots that try to police the network, it might be possible to get a court to declare whether your application is fair use. But it will be long after the 7 day window, cost a mint, and the users/bots may not care.
As fair as impartial judges go. I don't think they exists, but if you ever go to court you'd want one to at least treat you fairly. Let us suppose you were falsely accused of a misdemeanor, I am sure in a worst case scenario you'd rather have a judge that issues probation instead of 1 year jail. A judge can't for example look at a law and declare that it is unconstitutional, even if it would be illegal for him to enforce it. I am not saying it is right for a judge to engage in a criminal act, the proper thing for the judge to do is either recuse himself, or issue a stay to sue the government himself to make sure he's not violating the criminal law...I've never heard of that happening. To rule a law unconstitutional, the State AG or other official in the state constitution must be served and the state a party to the suit. So there is always a bias that what the state/crown is doing reflecting the will of the legislature is always right-such as if judges have strong reservations like mandatory minimum sentences. It's not that these judges are acting impartial in upholding a law they feel is wrong, they are mandated by precedent or state rules to have a bias in favor of the state. But somehow this is called being impartial. Increasingly we live in a time where laws are passed by the legislature without being read. If the will of the legislature through political machinations is supposed to be the consent of the people to be governed...then there is no legitimacy at all in the government but for their ability to use force.
As far as a judge having a legal education. There are some lower level legal processes that acts more like a machine, absent extraordinary circumstances. family court judges never follow the law-and they typically are the superior court level judges too. In most cases, judges are barely qualified to begin with. Until there is some accountability such as waiving absolute immunity, I don't see the system improving even if we required all judges had law degrees. Certificates of specialization would also help. I think in many cases an ordinary person would be more willing to side with a person than the state....But it is still the state choosing them in south carolina. It is still the politicians choosing their friends who will probably send convicts to go to special classes run by the politicians family.