Girish Mahajan (Editor)

Council of Five

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The Council of Five is a legislature and court in the Judge Dredd comic strip appearing in 2000 AD. It first appeared in 2000 AD prog 86 (1978), when it was said to simply be a court for senior judges: "a council of five." When it appeared again in prog 182 (1980), it was then said to be the governing body of Mega-City One.

Contents

The Council is the highest lawmaking body of Mega-City One and has sovereign power. It is also the court which tries Mega-City judges who are accused of breaking the law. A unanimous verdict is required to convict. When making decisions that affect the city they have been shown to generally make decisions that favour Judges (and their power over the city) over the citizens' personal and private lives and beliefs. Regardless of what the people might think or see it as, they do sometimes try and keep some of these decisions a secret (such as mass surveillance cameras and microphones in all new blocks built after Chaos Day). As Judge Buell once put it, "Pardon me for being picky, but when have we ever cared about what the people think?" When pushed though they do rarely make minor compromises to the citizens, but these often have no real effect on the city or the peoples lives and just play off their general stupidity or greed (Chief Judge Hershey's words) to get them to tow the line; an example of these would to legalise the ownership of a single small goldfish without a licence and offering to pay citizens a token amount to behave over Christmas (the citizens saw it as an act of good will and a minor victory, it was actually cheaper then arresting and imprisoning them).

Members of the Council are appointed or dismissed by the chief judge, currently (as of January 2017) Barbara Hershey. Originally the chief judge chaired council meetings and had the right of veto, and if the offices of chief judge and deputy chief judge were both vacant, the Council chose the new chief judge from among their number. However in the 1995 story "The Decision," set in 2117, the constitution was changed, so that the chief judge is no longer a member of the Council but is now separate (it is not clear whether the chief judge's veto was preserved); however the chief judge will usually still attend meetings. The deputy chief judge (if one has been appointed) now chairs meetings, unless the chief judge is present. The appointment of a deputy chief judge must have the consent of the Council. The chief judge is now elected by up to 1,200 senior judges, instead of being chosen by the Council. (See also the Chief Judge article for additional details.)

The Council was created by Judge Goodman when he became chief judge in 2057, initially as a guiding committee. In 2112, Chief Judge McGruder suspended the Council and ruled alone. The Council was reinstated in 2116 by her successor, Judge Volt.

Judge Dredd himself always declined a seat on the Council for most of his career, although he sat temporarily in a vacant seat for the trial of Judge Edgar in 2122, to make up a quorum. However in the last episode of "Tour of Duty" (2010; set in 2132) Dredd finally consented to a permanent appointment, only because Chief Judge Francisco insisted. When Francisco resigned two years later, Dredd announced that he was leaving the Council, and advised the other councillors to do so as well, in order to give incoming Chief Judge Hershey a fresh start. However Hershey kept them on her "interim council."

The Council in 2070

Origins episode 12 (2006) showed the Council just before the Atomic Wars broke out, in 2070. This is the oldest depicted Council of Five.

The members shown were Arlow, Johanssen, Lowther, Judd, and Solomon. The first three have only appeared in that issue. The Chief Judge was not a member of the Council, but attended meetings. It is not known when this arrangement was changed to have the chief judge as a member of the Council, which had happened by 2101 (as seen in prog 86).

Lists of Members of Council of Five since 2101

These lists begin with the characters who appeared in the first episode of Judge Dredd to name every member of the Council, "Block War," published in 1980 (prog 182).

Statistics

The following relates only to those individuals listed above (i.e. post-2101):

  • Violent deaths: Of the 37 ex-councillors on the above lists, 16 were removed from the Council by violent death (43%). Three of those were killed by the Dark Judges (Grimlet, Herriman and Silver). Four were killed during the Apocalypse War. Their average term of office was just under 3½ years, compared with over six years among ex-councillors overall.
  • Corruption and incompetence: Of the councillors listed, three were corrupt – Sinfield, Ramos, and Bachmann – of which the first two were sent to the penal colony on Titan. Three of the councillors in 2108 were dismissed for suspect judgement by McGruder; and two, Shenker and Buell, were demoted on separate occasions by Hershey for severe failures in their departments.
  • Terms of office: The longest continuous term served on the Council (since 2101) was 15 years, by Judge Niles (who later served a second term of two years). The shortest term was one day, an ad hoc temporary appointment served by Dredd to fill the seat left vacant when Shenker stepped down. If that is not counted, then the next shortest terms are those of Benedetto, Rolf and Sherman, who only served for a few weeks each.
  • Chief judges: Four councillors became chief judge (McGruder, Silver, Hershey and Sinfield). Two others joined the Council ex officio because they had become chief judge (Griffin and Volt).
  • Backgrounds: Nine councillors were street judges at the time of their elevation to the Council (including Volt and Herriman). The Academy of Law provided four (Griffin, Silver and Pepper were tutors before they became chief and deputy chief judges). Fourteen were heads of their divisions: four from Tek-Division, the SJS and Psi Division providing three judges each, Wally Squad providing two (counting the acting-head), and Accounts and Black Ops one each. (The backgrounds of ten members are not known.)

    • Other members

  • Judge Goodman, founder of the Council.
  • Judge Cal, chief judge between Goodman and Griffin.

    • Virgin novels

    Although Chief Judge McGruder abolished the Council of Five at the beginning of her second term of office, some of the Judge Dredd novels published by Virgin Books (1993–1995) still featured the Council during this period. To reconcile this apparent discrepancy, one of the books stated that the Council existed in a purely advisory capacity, with no executive power, and only sat intermittently, as and when required. It consisted of McGruder, Shenker, Hershey, and two others. The identities of the fourth and fifth members varied from book to book, as these characters were frequently killed off. (Since the books were written by four different authors, they were not always consistent with each other, and one book reprised a character a year after he had been killed off in another book.) None of these characters ever appeared in the comics.

    In other media

    The Council of Five appeared in the 1995 film Judge Dredd. It featured Chief Judge Fargo (with the title "Chief Justice"), Griffin, McGruder, Silver and a judge called Esposito (who was not in the comic). They were all murdered.

    In the IDW comic strip set in 2080 the four councillors assisting Chief Judge Goodman were Bellamy, Russell, Wallace (the sole female Council member) and an un-named judge.

    References

    Council of Five Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA