Aparently, Justice Ginsburg Doesn't Believe in Checks and Balances
Betsy's Page
Ruth Bader Ginsburg is all worried that some congressional leaders are advocating keeping an eye on the Judicial branch.
<<< Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Tuesday that a Republican proposal in Congress to set up a watchdog over the federal courts is a "really scary idea."
Ginsburg told a gathering of the American Bar Association that lawyers should stick up for judges when they are criticized by congressional leaders.
"My sense now is that the judiciary is under assault in a way that I haven't seen before," she said.
As an example, she mentioned proposals by senior Republicans who want an inspector general to police judges' acceptance of free trips or their possible financial interests with groups that could appear before them.
"It sounds to me very much like the Soviet Union was .... That's a really scary idea," said Ginsburg, who was put on the court by President Clinton and is one of its liberal members.
Ginsburg said her confirmation hearings in 1993, and those the following year for Justice Stephen Breyer, were long but friendly. "That bipartisan spirit has broken down," she said. >>>
Well, which party broke that bipartisan spirit? Think of all the Democratic senators who couldn't bring themselves to vote for such eminently qualified candidates as John Roberts and Sam Alito. Did that bother Ginsburg?
She seems to have a real problem with people criticizing the Court, particularly those in the Legislative branch. I'm sorry, but there is nothing in our system that rules out Congress setting up a "watchdog" on what Alexander Hamilton once thought was the "least dangerous" branch. Judges have lifetime tenure and there isn't much the Congress could do, other than impeachment, if they thought that judges were behaving unethically. Tradition has it that judges themselves determine if they should recuse themselves from hearing a case in which they have had some connection. Ginsburg may be feeling a mite touchy on the subject since she has failed to recuse herself when her husband had some financial connection to one of the litigants.
<<< In what appear to be violations of federal law and codes of judicial ethics, Justice Ginsburg has participated in more than 20 cases in which her husband owned stock in one of the litigating companies.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg may have violated federal law, as well as professional codes of judicial ethics, by participating in more than 20 cases in which one of the litigants was a publicly traded corporation in which her husband owned stock.
Reviewing Ginsburg's financial-disclosure reports and cases in West's Supreme Court Reporter, Insight found that since 1995, Ginsburg apparently did not disqualify, or recuse, herself from cases that directly affected eight companies in her husband's rollover individual-retirement account, or IRA. Martin Ginsburg owned between $15,001 and $50,000 worth of shares in NYNEX, American Home Products, Exxon, General Electric, American International Group, Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson -- and $15,000 or less in AT&T -- at the time his wife appears to have adjudicated cases that may have affected the value of his portfolio.
And even if that had no effect on the companies' stock-market performance, Ginsburg still may have violated the federal statute governing judicial procedure, which provides that "Any judge, justice or magistrate shall disqualify himself in any proceeding" if "he knows that he, individually or as a fiduciary, or his spouse or minor child residing in his household, has a financial interest in the subject matter in controversy or in a party to the proceeding" (28 U.S.C. [sections] 455). "Financial interest," according to the statute, "means ownership of a legal or equitable interest, however small." Both the American Bar Association's influential Model Code of Judicial Conduct, and the Judicial Conference's Code of Conduct for United States Judges (adopted by virtually all federal district and appeals courts) contain similar provisions and emphasize that judges must avoid all impropriety and appearance of impropriety. >>>
Of course, all those people getting their panties in a twist about Sam Alito's failure to recuse himself originally in the Vanguard case never murmered a word about Ruth Bader Ginsburg's more clear-cut violations of the standards on recusal.
betsyspage.blogspot.com |
