WASHINGTON – Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan said on Thursday that she would back the creation of a judicial panel to monitor justices’ compliance with the court’s new ethics code, multiple news outlets reported.
Kagan told a judicial conference in Sacramento, California, she would be supportive if Chief Justice John Roberts formed “some sort of committee of highly respected judges with a great deal of experience and a reputation for fairness” to assess potential violations of the code, according to Bloomberg Law.
The Supreme Court in November adopted its first code of conduct amid a swirl of ethics scrutiny. Critics have said the code does not go far enough, as it allows justices to decide for themselves whether to recuse from cases and provides no mechanism of enforcement.
Kagan said criticism about the code’s lack of enforcement procedures was fair.
“Rules usually have enforcement mechanisms attached to them, and this one, this set of rules, does not,” Kagan said, according to the Washington Post, adding that “however hard it is, we could and should try to figure out some mechanism for doing this.”
The event’s organizers and a court spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Some justices have faced ethics scrutiny for actions away from the bench, including reports that flags associated with then-President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss flew outside Justice Samuel Alito’s homes in Virginia and New Jersey, and revelations about Justice Clarence Thomas accepting undisclosed travel from a wealthy benefactor.
