Supreme Court shares first ever code of ethics

After months of scrutiny over Supreme Court Justices’ undisclosed vacations and gifts from wealthy political donors, the highest court in the land will be adopting a formal code of ethics.

On Monday, the Supreme Court announced they were issued a code and released a 14-page document outlining the rules justices follow and their responsibilities.

The court noted that the rules and principles “are not new” and the court has long followed “the equivalent of common law ethics rules” derived from statutory provisions and other federal judicial codes of ethics.

“The absence of a Code, however, has led in recent years to the misunderstanding that the Justices of this Court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules,” the court wrote. “To dispel this misunderstanding, we are issuing this Code, which largely represents a codification of principles that we have long regarded as governing our conduct.”

The new ethics guidelines come after months of investigations from ProPublica revealed Justice Clarence Thomas had accepted luxury vacations and gifts from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow – none of which had been disclosed on his prior financial disclosure documents.

Justices Samuel Alito and Sonia Sotomayor have also faced scrutiny.

Members of Congress and the public raised issues with the lacking guidelines and demanded the court adopt a formal code to prevent conflicts of interest in cases the justices ruled on.

Public trust in the court sank to a historical low according to Pew Research leading the Senate Judiciary Committee, headed by Dick Durbin, to launch an investigation into the matter.

The new code includes a lengthy section regarding how justices should approach their “personal and fiduciary financial interests” as well as their spouse or children’s financial interests.

Justices may conduct financial and business dealings but the code asks that a justice “refrain” from dealings that “exploit the judicial position” or involve a just in transactions that involve lawyers or people “likely to appear before the Court”.

The court also formally adopted the Judicial Conference Regulations on Gifts which provides guidelines on how justices and their family members should accept gifts and disclose them.

Another section indicates that while justices can participate in extrajudicial activities they should not if it detracts from their office, interferes with their performance of official duties or reflects adversely on the justice’s impartiality.

All nine justices signed and agreed to adhere to the new code of ethics.