A new ‘Code of Conduct’ was established by the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
In response to months of increased scrutiny from Senate Judiciary Democrats calling for new ethics rules for the high court, the Supreme Court on Monday released a new “Code of Conduct”.
“The undersigned Justices are promulgating this Code of Conduct to set out succinctly and gather in one place the ethics rules and principles that guide the conduct of the Members of the Court,” the press release issued on Monday stated.
“For the most part these rules and principles are not new: The Court has long had the equivalent of common law ethics rules, that is, a body of rules derived from a variety of sources, including statutory provisions, the code that applies to other members of the federal judiciary, ethics advisory opinions issued by the Judicial Conference Committee on Codes of Conduct, and historic practice,” according to the press release.
“However, the absence of a Code has led to the recent misunderstanding that the Justices of this Court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unconstrained by any ethics rules.” “We are issuing this Code to dispel this misunderstanding, which largely represents a codification of principles that we have long regarded as governing our conduct,” it continues.
