New Bill Pitches Big Court Reforms Aimed At Transparency
The Democratic legislation includes a code of ethics for the justices, free PACER access for most users and live streaming of Supreme Court arguments, according to Fix the Court.
March 02, 2020 at 09:00 AM
5 minute read
A new bill aimed at reforming the federal judiciary would add a code of ethics for the U.S. Supreme Court, require justices to say why they recused themselves from cases and make online access to court records free for most users.
The bill would also require the Supreme Court to start offering live audio of oral arguments within two years, have judges's financial disclosures posted online within 90 days of the judiciary receiving them, and streamline the online case management for courts to make it easier for researchers and others to access and track cases across the judiciary.
If enacted, the measures would be a major victory for those advocating for more transparency within the federal judiciary, an institution that has drawn criticism for its opaqueness.
The full text of the legislation was not available at the time of publication, but details of the bill were shared by the group Fix the Court. The bill has since been shared with The National Law Journal.
Rep. Hank Johnson, chair of the House Judiciary subcommittee on courts, Rep. Mike Quigley, chair of the House Appropriations Financial Services subcommittee and Rep. Jerry Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, are sponsoring the legislation, and introduced it on Friday.
Johnson said in a statement Monday that the "Supreme Court must create common-sense ethical standards to ensure public trust in this institution."
And he also called for court records to become more accessible to more Americans, particularly those who can't afford them. "These resources cannot just be reserved for the rich—Congress must make court proceedings available and accessible to everyone," Johnson said.
Quigley echoed Johnson's calls for transparency in a statement Monday, saying, "Faith in our democracy and in our governmental institutions can only be strengthened by increased transparency and accountability from every branch of government."
"That means that our nation's highest court must embrace an ethics code and federal courts around the country must make their records more accessible to the public," Quigley said. "Given the historic flaws of our judicial system, we must take steps to ensure that public trust is not eroded any further."
Past attempts to reform the courts have sputtered out; a bill that also offered reforms was voted out of the House Judiciary Committee in 2018, but didn't make it to the floor over concerns about some of the measures included, like mandated doctors visits for federal judges.
Court reform groups have spent the past 14 months working on this legislation, encouraging lawmakers to consolidate around certain pillars of transparency instead of specific legislative fixes, according to a release from the pro-transparency group Fix the Court.
"An independent judiciary requires the public's confidence in the impartiality of judges and justices," Gabe Roth, Fix the Court's executive director, said in a statement. "Ensuring that the Supreme Court abides by a code of conduct, that every level of the judiciary better accounts for conflicts of interest and that all Americans have unfettered access to court documents—as this bill calls for—would go a long way toward building that confidence."
While some appellate courts livestream oral arguments, most federal courts don't offer it. Under this bill, all circuit courts would have to livestream audio of en banc panels within a year, and start livestreaming all arguments within two years.
At a hearing last week on the federal judiciary's 2021 budget request, Quigley pressed the witnesses—Administrative Office of the Courts Director James Duff and Judge John Lungstrum, chair of the Judicial Conference Committee on the Budget—about making the courts more transparent, particularly by offering livestreams.
"As I have said before, we in Congress, whether we like it or not, are generally on camera in our hearings. This keeps us accountable for what we say and reflects a democratic process in action for the people we serve," Quigley said at the start of the hearing. "It should be no different in our courts."
The idea of a code of ethics for the Supreme Court has also gained support for Capitol Hill. Justice Elena Kagan told a House panel last year that Chief Justice John Roberts was considering a code of ethics for the high court, but a code has not materialized in the months since.
The bill would also mandate justices to provide further details on the reasons they have recused themselves from a case. That requirement would not apply for cases involving personal privacy.
Also covered by the legislation is a measure to make PACER free for most users. The costs of the online system for federal court records would be offset by "power users," or commercial entities that rack up more than $25,000 in user fees annually, as well as some additional bankruptcy fees and fees paid by the Justice Department.
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