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Search resuls for: "Judicial Conference"


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March 28 (Reuters) - U.S. Supreme Court justices and federal judges will be required to provide greater public disclosure of any free trips, meals or gifts they receive under new regulations adopted at the urging of lawmakers and judicial transparency advocates. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who has argued for broader ethics reforms at the Supreme Court. He and other Democrats in Congress have introduced legislation that would require the Supreme Court to adopt a code of ethics, strengthen recusal standards for judges and bolster financial disclosure requirements. Under the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, U.S. Supreme Court justices and federal judges are required, like certain other government officials, to complete financial disclosure reports annually. Under the new regulations, judges still will not have to disclose gifts that include food, lodging or entertainment extended by an individual for a non-business purpose.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse sent a letter to an agency demanding more information on ethics rules for federal judges. Unlike lower federal judges, Supreme Court justices are not bound by a code of conduct. In a new letter obtained by Insider, Whitehouse demanded answers on how the justices and all other federal judges disclose hospitality they receive, including gifts, food, lodging and entertainment. The letter is a follow-up to a lengthy back-and-forth in recent years between Whitehouse and the agency on the judges' ethics rules. The American Bar Association also urged the Supreme Court this month to adopt ethics rules similar to those followed by all other federal judges.
But ethics experts say the bill has a major loophole when it comes to blind trusts, and is too broad. Broadly speaking, a blind trust is a financial arrangement wherein people turn over their assets to be managed by an independent entity to prevent a conflict of interest. Several previously-introduced bills to ban stock trading allow for lawmakers to place their stocks into a blind trust, rather than fully selling off existing stock holdings. "You'd be able to create any kind of a trust you want to, put anything you want into it, and call it a blind trust, even though there wouldn't actually be any way to prove that it is, in fact, a blind trust." Payne also said the blind trust loophole was a "small risk," but that in an optimistic scenario, "that language allows this law to grow for future circumstances that you just can't be prepared for."
Chief Justice John Roberts, one of the court’s six conservatives, pushed back against some of the criticism in a recent public appearance, saying people should not question the court’s legitimacy just because they disagree with its rulings. It is important that the public think the justices are reaching decisions in good faith based on the law, Girgis said. Sotomayor said at an event in California on Thursday that “there’s going to be some question about the court’s legitimacy” if people think the justices are acting based on politics, according to a Courthouse News Service report. But I don’t understand the connection between opinions people disagree with and the legitimacy of the court,” he said. Conversely, in 1954, Southern states resisted enforcing the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling, which ended segregation in public schools.
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