Global Courant 2023-05-02 02:06:04
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts waits for U.S. President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address before a joint session of the U.S. Congress in the House Chamber of the Capitol in Washington, U.S., Feb. 4, 2020.
Leah Millis | Reuters
High Council Chief Justice John Roberts responded in a letter extra on Monday to ask about ethics on the Supreme Court — but the Senate Judiciary Committee was not impressed by his response.
Roberts’ answers “further emphasize the need for meaningful reform of Supreme Court ethics, which the committee will discuss tomorrow at our hearing,” the Democrat-led judiciary committee said in a Twitter post.
In the letter, Roberts revealed that the nine Supreme Court justices endorsed a recently updated version last Tuesday “Statement on Ethical Principles and Practices.”
That came after news articles revealing Justice Clarence Thomas had not disclosed luxury vacations gifted to him and his wife for more than two decades by Republican billionaire Harlan Crow, whose company also bought properties belonging to Thomas and his relatives in Georgia.
Thomas, whose mother still lives on one of those properties as a tenant of Crow’s company, also did not make the purchase public until ProPublic revealed it.
The revelations come as the Supreme Court experiences an all-time low of public approval.
The Judiciary Committee looks at how to improve ethics in court.
The committee’s chairman, Senator Dick Durbin, D-Ill., invited Roberts on April 20 to testify before the panel Tuesday about ethics reform in court.
Roberts declined the invitation, writing to Durbin that appearing before the committee could harm the independence of the Congressional judiciary, its sister in the three branches of the federal government.
Roberts’ response included a statement of ethical principles and practices “that all current members of the Supreme Court subscribe to”.
The Supreme Court, unlike lower federal courts, is not bound by a mandatory code of conduct.
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After Roberts refused to appear for the hearing, Durbin sent him another letter saying that the “statement of principles raises more questions than it solves”.
Durbin’s letter asked Roberts several questions, including whether judges are given guidance on which authorities to consult on ethical issues, whether judges are affected by omissions in their financial disclosure reports, and whether there is a process for the public to file complaints against judges for to fail. adhere to the statement.
In his response on Monday, Roberts wrote that “as with any matter requiring investigation, judges consult a wide variety of guidelines on ethical issues,” then offered a laundry list of sources for such guidelines, including “statutes, court opinions . . . and historical practice, among other sources.”
Roberts wrote that in the past the Committee on Financial Disclosure inquired about judges’ disclosures, which in some cases ended with no further action, and in others resulted in judges choosing or being advised to file a modified disclosure report.
“I am not aware of any case where a judge and the commission have not resolved issues that led to an investigation,” the chief justice wrote.
“And, given the history of resolving such issues, I am not aware of any penalties imposed on judges for failure to adhere to any such principles or practices identified in the statement,” he wrote.
Roberts did not answer in his letter whether there is any procedure for a member of the public to file a complaint against the judges for failing to comply with the statement of principles.
