The Supreme Court of the United States announced this Monday through a statement the promulgation of a code of conduct for its judges. The step comes after numerous scandals have called into question the integrity of several members of the court, who have accepted gifts and invitations that raise ethical questions, including possible conflicts of interest.
The new code of conduct, signed by the nine members of the Supreme Court, It is only 15 pages and of them only half include the provisions to be complied with, while the presentation and a comment take up part of the space. “The undersigned judges promulgate this Code of Conduct to succinctly set forth and bring together in one place the ethical standards and principles that govern the conduct of members of the Court,” the introductory statement says. of the document.
“For the most part, these rules and principles are not new: the Court has long had the equivalent of common law ethical rules, that is, a set of rules derived from a variety of sources, including statutory provisions, the code that applies to other members of the federal judiciary, the advisory opinions on ethics issued by the Codes of Conduct Committee of the Judicial Conference and historical practice,” the judges explain in an argument that not all experts share, since It was not clear how those rules applied to them.
“The absence of a Code, however, has led in recent years to the misunderstanding that the judges of this Court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as not constrained by any standard of ethics.” . To dispel this misunderstanding, we publish this Code, which largely represents a codification of the principles that we have long considered to govern our conduct,” the introduction concludes.
Three Supreme Court justices (Amy Coney Barrett, Elena Kagan and Brett Kavanaugh) have repeatedly expressed their support for an ethical code in recent months. In May, Chief Justice John Roberts said the Court could do more to “adhere to the highest ethical standards,” without providing concrete details.
The issue has become topical after a series of reports that questioned the ethical practices of judges. Many of those stories focused on Justice Clarence Thomas and the failure to disclose his travel and other financial ties to wealthy conservative donors such as Texas real estate magnate Harlan Crow and the Koch brothers. In April, ProPublica revealed years of undeclared luxury trips by the magistrate, sometimes on private planes and aboard a superyacht, thanks to Crow’s generosity.
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Several media outlets have later revealed other gifts not declared by the judge from powerful friends. Among them, the purchase of the motorhome that Judge Thomas uses, the payment of tuition for a private school for a great-nephew and some real estate transaction.
Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Sonia Sotomayor have also been under scrutiny. ProPublica reported on Alito’s fishing trip to Alaska with a Republican Party donor, a trip that conservative activist Leonard Leo helped organize. The Associated Press reported that Sotomayor, aided by her staff, has promoted sales of her books through visits to colleges over the past decade.
The first article of the newly enacted code reads: “A justice of the Supreme Court of the United States must maintain and observe high standards of conduct in order to preserve the integrity and independence of the federal judiciary.” The second states: “The judge must not allow his family, social, political, financial or other relationships to influence his official conduct or judgment. The judge must not consciously use the prestige of jurisdictional functions to favor his own private interests or those of others, nor give or allow others to give the impression that they are in a special position to influence him.
Several of the provisions indicate cases in which a judge must refrain from ruling on a case. A fairly lax regime of incompatibilities is also established, which prohibits judges from engaging in purely political activity, but leaves them a wide margin for academic or even business activities: “The judge may engage in extrajudicial activities, including those related to law, as well as civic, charitable, educational, religious, social, financial, fiduciary and governmental activities, and may speak, write, lecture and teach on legal and non-legal topics,” says the code of conduct, which introduces the following qualification: “ However, a judge should not engage in extrajudicial activities that undermine the dignity of his office, interfere with the performance of his official duties, call into question his impartiality, result in his frequent disqualification, or violate the limitations set forth.
The judges have preferred not to approve stricter regulations on gifts. The code states that judges must comply with the restrictions on accepting gifts and the prohibition on soliciting gifts generally established in the Regulations on Gifts of the Judicial Conference. The text says that the judge must seek to prevent any member of his family residing in her home from requesting or accepting a gift, except to the extent that the Judicial Conference Rules on Gifts allow it.
Nor is it guaranteed that with the code of ethics there will be greater transparency from now on, since no changes have been adopted, although the door is left open to “study the convenience” of modifying some rules on information obligations. “With regard to the disclosure of financial information, judges will continue to seek guidance from the Office of Legal Counsel and the staff of the relevant committees of the Judicial Conference,” comments to the code say.
Citizen confidence in the Court and its approval are approaching historic lows, according to a published Gallup poll at the end of September, just before the start of the new judicial year.
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