The Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics responds to written inquiries from New York state's approximately 3,600 judges and justices, as well as hundreds of judicial hearing officers, support magistrates, court attorney-referees, and judicial candidates (both judges and non-judges seeking election to judicial office). The committee interprets the Rules Governing Judicial Conduct (22 NYCRR Part 100) and, to the extent applicable, the Code of Judicial Conduct. The committee consists of 27 current and retired judges, and is co-chaired by the Honorable Margaret Walsh, a justice of the supreme court, and the Honorable Lillian Wan, a court of claims judge and acting supreme court justice.

Digest: (1) This Committee, unlike an individual judge, cannot determine the constitutionality of the enabling statute for a school bus stop-arm violation monitoring program nor whether any resulting guidelines, requirements, directives, forms, notifications or advisements emanating from that statute are lawful and thus ethically permissible. (2) A judge must comply with legal mandates. Absent a legal requirement to do so, a judge should not voluntarily comply with guidelines that are not directly enabled by the law, to the extent that they require a judge to engage in ethically impermissible conduct.

Rules: Judiciary Law § 212(2)(l); VTL § 1174-a; 22 NYCRR 100.2; 100.2(A); 100.3(B)(1); 101.1; Opinions 16-140; 16-68; 14-34; 11-87; 01-100/01-101; Marbury v. Madison, 5 US 137 (1803).