(TargetLiberty.org) – Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D) has been increasing the pressure on the Supreme Court to deal with the ethics concerns that have recently emerged.
On Monday, he filed an ethics complaint against Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s comments during a July interview with the Wall Street Journal. The complaint comes at a time when many justices have faced a lot of allegations of having not followed the ethics rules. In response to this Whitehouse authored legislation that was aiming to have a code of conduct implemented for all the Justices in the country’s highest court.
However, during the interview in question, Alito claimed that there was no basis for Congress passing an ethics code for the Court. He proceeded to argue that the Constitution did not include a provision that would give them such authority in any way.
White House in its new complaint has argued that these remarks by Alito are in violation of the Code of Conduct that Judges in the United States are obliged to follow. As he notes the code states that judges need to constantly be acting in a way that “promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary” and should never make any public remarks that relate to a matter that is either pending or could appear before the court.
As he wrote, making such public comments on a legal issue that might end up appearing before the Court created a situation where the rules that should be protected appear to not have been protected. He added that Alito’s comments in particular were “worse” as they specifically stated his opinion on a dispute that is ongoing.
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