Definition at Wiki:
It was originally established to ensure the fair enforcement of laws against socially and politically prominent people sufficiently powerful that ordinary courts might hesitate to convict them of their crimes.
However, it became synonymous with social and political oppression through the arbitrary use and abuse of the power it wielded.
In modern times, legal or administrative bodies with strict, arbitrary rulings, no "due process" rights to those accused, and secretive proceedings are sometimes metaphorically called "star chambers".
Another term was "kangaroo court":
"Kangaroo court" is an informal pejorative term for a court that ignores recognized standards of law or justice, carries little or no official standing in the territory within which it resides, and is typically convened ad hoc.
A kangaroo court may ignore due process and come to a predetermined conclusion. The term is also used for a court held by a legitimate judicial authority, but which intentionally disregards the court's legal or ethical obligations (compare show trial).
Usually seen by one side, maybe the majority side, as a gross abuse of due process, highly slanted and determined to convict, no matter what, such a process is sometimes excused, as in the "conviction" and execution of the Ceausescus, as a "desirable outcome" which could not otherwise have been obtained and is obviously questionable retribution, done this way, for past crimes, imagined or real.
Thus today's TGP headlines include:
Jack Smith Preparing to Hit Trump with 45 More Charges as ‘Back-Up Plan’ in Classified Documents Case
Dirty Jack Smith and Biden’s DOJ Is Set to Indict Rudy Giuliani and Fellow Trump Attorneys for Questioning Stolen 2020 Election
Donald Trump Wins Election in Oregon After Being Written In By Voters
Whatever the rights or wrongs, which are sometimes sorted out 56 years down the track, as in the case of Andrew Johnson whose impeachment was finally held to be unconstitutional long after any good could have been done at the time, in the highly charged and divided politics of the day ... the star chamber is clearly a highly effective political weapon, resorted to against an opponent who was quite likely to reverse the course of history, should he have remained in power, holding the official means to effect this reversal of a course of events.
That's just how serious this matter is, particularly if brought in by a lower or circuit court stacked with political appointees. Also interwoven is the slant of the MSM of the day, plus those of other govt bodies, e.g. the DOJ, the CIA, the FBI.
There are some utterly dismaying aspects to such shoddy proceedings, be it DJT or Nigel Farage's loss of banking rights in the UK or the release, against judicial procedure, of Amanda Knox by a lower chamber of the Supreme Court in Italy, over the judgment of First Chambers pertaining to the case ... perhaps THE most dismaying aspect is that strong supporters of the "star chamber's" judgments seize upon them as "fair and impartial process" when in fact they were nothing of the kind whatever.
In fact, they were highly slanted and inflammatory ... but even worse ... subject to endless appeals loops which only enrich attorneys and suspend any form of justice acceptable to both sides ... until long after, way too late, to have any retrospective force.
Even more serious is the disintegration of any respect among the population for the institutions which allowed such a thing to take place in the first instance, whichever political side it was from, and when provisions had been made in the law of the land to prevent just such abuses ... yet those provisions were ignored for short term expediency.
It was seen from the Warren Commission to the inevitable impeachment of Richard Nixon, back to Andrew Johnson in America ... situations favouring both the Democrats and Republicans or even the Whigs of the day.
Such a thing is highly damaging to the institution where clearly stacked odds against the defendant cannot possibly see justice done, acceptable to both sides.
The greatest danger of all is that a large proportion of the population, alarmingly, is perfectly happy to go along with and even support such a gross miscarriage and misapplication of tenets designed to protect both sides. In their very chortling over the "victory" over a hated opponent, the principle guiding action is no longer "right" ... but has become "might".
This is the guiding principle in "banana republics" ... this is the stuff of civil wars and revolutions where an even more terrible foe of the country sits back, grinning, observing the two sides beating each other nearly to death ... then in rides this true foe of the people of the land who now takes over with little to no resistance.
And those whose ethics and grasp of the word "constitutional" allowed them to ride roughshod over due process? Either now dead, or languishing in a J6 prison long after any form of decency demanded they be released ... or locked into deep antipathy for the side they abused and vice-versa, not unlike the hootsies and tootsies of guess which bastion of justice in the world?
Rwanda.
