Accountable to None: The Urgent Need for Supreme Court Ethics Reform

The Supreme Court is poised to roll away our most cherished rights, and continue to stack the deck in favor of the wealthy and powerful.

They are the only federal judges not bound by a judicial code of ethics.

Alliance for Justice’s special report entitled Accountable To None: The Urgent Need for Supreme Court Ethics Reforms is an essential cataloguing of ethical violations by current Supreme Court justices. There can be no accountability for these violations, however, because the Code of Conduct for lower-court judges is considered mere “guidance” for the justices, who are not required to actually follow its Five Canons.

The report makes policy recommendations for how to create enforcement mechanisms when the justices undermine their office and outlines various legislative proposals already being offered. These ethics reforms would create the kind of robust transparency and anti-discrimination measures necessary to protect the democracy from justices run amok. There is no time to waste.