The conservative justice indicated support for a code of conduct similar to the one that applies to lower federal court judges.
Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett indicated Monday she would support a code of conduct for the Supreme Court in the wake of recent claims that some justices have fallen short of required ethical standards.
Speaking at the University of Minnesota Law School, Barrett said it would be “a good idea for us do it” and suggested that the justices are broadly in support of a set of principles similar to those that lower court judges are required to follow.
“There is no lack of consensus among the justices. There’s unanimity among all nine justices that we should and do hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards possible,” she added.
I don’t really understand how ethics rules would really help fix the inherent problems within the Supreme Court. How would they even be implemented, and what body overseas their application?
Do the judges themselves decide when they break the ethics rules? Does the court decide the punishment? Unless there’s some mechanism of action in place to actually remove or punish a sitting Supreme Court justice, how will it be any different than what we have now? If there is some change to the separations of power, how will politicians utilize it to game the system?
I honestly think this is just a way to appease the general public while not changing anything about the behaviour of the courts. Oh okay, I broke an ethics rule, I guess impeach me or something… oh yeah, 3/4 of Senate and the house are completely ethically bankrupt and would never remove a sitting justice on their own side!
That’s what kills me about this whole thing too. No one is talking about this. Rules without enforcement are just suggestions. Any meaningful enforcement mechanism will either have an impossibly high threshold or be inevitable be weaponized.
An “ethics code” is a deflection from the real issue. Thomas must be impeached and removed. Any talk about an ethics code is distracting from the fact that the mechanisms we do have are not being used.
Yeap, the best I can think of is a violation of the ethics rules lowering the needed votes for an impeachment from supermajority to majority. But that would inevitably lead to more political investigations and maneuvering in Congress.
It’s all kind of hopeless unless we have people in Congress that care more about the people than their political parties, and if we had that this wouldn’t be a problem in the first place.
Let’s also keep in mind that the ethics committee in the House and Senate are seen as one of the most pointless, least powerful appointments in their respective bodies. They have zero enforcement power.
The only way we’ll see real accountability is if we restore checks and balances with each branch able to remove members from other branches.
But that’s not happening anytime soon.