Everything about a court case is a conditional. It is relatively unusual for the evidence to be so clear-cut that there is no doubt about the verdict, and often a court must make the fairest decision it can based on far less evidence than it might like.
That said, this isn't really a hypothetical issue. Our courts function in this way every day. Please understand that to those of us on this side of the Atlantic, everything you are describing just sounds weird. "Judiciary corrupted by electioneering"? Judges responding "non-punitively"? Our judiciary in the UK has a long and honourable tradition of being the standard-bearers of justice that one would hope they would be, and of resisting politicisation far more effectively than the other major branches of government (to the extent that we have them; our system doesn't treat US-style separation of powers as sacrosanct either).
Having been in a court on a couple of occasions, although never as a plaintiff or defendant, I have always been impressed by the way the officials conducted themselves. IMHO, our legal system does have its problems when it comes to handling relatively low-value cases, but those are more due to the time and effort required to figure out how the system works and complete all the paperwork than because the legal fees are prohibitive.
One injustice I have personally witnessed happened when someone was cleared of a motoring offence, on the second hearing since the first was aborted when courtroom time ran out for that day. That person lost had two days of their life attending court, and presumably also spent considerable time planning their defence (as they were not legally represented). They must also have had the stress and uncertainty from waiting nearly a year to hear the verdict, and presumably lost out on some income that would have been earned on those days they were in court, because even though they were cleared of all charges, defendants do not even seem to get the same expense refunds that witnesses do. I find the fact that someone deemed not guilty in court should still be harmed even to that extent to be unfair. I simply do not understand how any system where someone innocent might wind up paying out hundreds or thousands in a settlement because the danger of having to pay for their own defence in court would be even more could possibly be in the interests of justice.
That said, this isn't really a hypothetical issue. Our courts function in this way every day. Please understand that to those of us on this side of the Atlantic, everything you are describing just sounds weird. "Judiciary corrupted by electioneering"? Judges responding "non-punitively"? Our judiciary in the UK has a long and honourable tradition of being the standard-bearers of justice that one would hope they would be, and of resisting politicisation far more effectively than the other major branches of government (to the extent that we have them; our system doesn't treat US-style separation of powers as sacrosanct either).
Having been in a court on a couple of occasions, although never as a plaintiff or defendant, I have always been impressed by the way the officials conducted themselves. IMHO, our legal system does have its problems when it comes to handling relatively low-value cases, but those are more due to the time and effort required to figure out how the system works and complete all the paperwork than because the legal fees are prohibitive.
One injustice I have personally witnessed happened when someone was cleared of a motoring offence, on the second hearing since the first was aborted when courtroom time ran out for that day. That person lost had two days of their life attending court, and presumably also spent considerable time planning their defence (as they were not legally represented). They must also have had the stress and uncertainty from waiting nearly a year to hear the verdict, and presumably lost out on some income that would have been earned on those days they were in court, because even though they were cleared of all charges, defendants do not even seem to get the same expense refunds that witnesses do. I find the fact that someone deemed not guilty in court should still be harmed even to that extent to be unfair. I simply do not understand how any system where someone innocent might wind up paying out hundreds or thousands in a settlement because the danger of having to pay for their own defence in court would be even more could possibly be in the interests of justice.