Roberts speaks to Congress on court reform: we are working hard

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Chief Justice John Roberts started his 2021 year-end report, As he often does, set the stage with historical anecdotes. But at the end of the first page, the message of Roberts’s report released as usual on the last day of the year is already very clear. In the year when the Presidential Committee studied the reform of the Supreme Court and members of Congress introduced major legislation to reform the federal judiciary, Roberts believes that any changes to the court system should (and he said will) come from within.

Roberts started his 2020 year-end report by looking back over 200 years, telling a story involving the first Chief Justice John Jay. In his 2021 report, he only went back a century, returning to the tenth chief justice and former president William Howard Taft. Roberts wrote that as the Chief Justice, Taft was a “visionary man” who persuaded Congress to establish what would eventually become the United States Judicial Conference to formulate policies for the federal courts. Roberts argued that Taft also believed that the court “needs full institutional independence.” “The power of the judiciary to manage its internal affairs,” Roberts emphasized, “protecting the court from undue political influence is essential to maintaining the public’s trust in its work as an independent and equal government agency.”

After noticing that the Judicial Conference has spent a lot of time dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and cybersecurity in the past two years, Roberts turned to three specific issues. He said, “In the past year, Congress and the media have pointed out These issues” and “will receive the attention of the Judicial Conference and its committees in the coming months.”

The first issue that Roberts resolved related to federal ethics rules, and in particular, federal judges are obliged to avoid any case involving their personal financial interests.September, one investigation An article published in the Wall Street Journal revealed that in seven years, 131 federal judges participated in 685 cases involving companies in which they or their family members own stocks. Federal law and conflict of interest rules prohibit judges from hearing such cases.

In response to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the House of Representatives passed the Court Ethics and Transparency Act by a vote of 422 to 4 in early December. In a statement at the time, Gabe Roth of Fix the Court was a nonpartisan organization that advocated reforms to make the federal judiciary more accountable to the American people. He said the bill was designed to “help litigants and the public identify conflicts” in real time. This would require a federal judge (although not a Supreme Court judge) to disclose the purchase and sale of stocks in excess of $1,000 within 45 days of the transaction. The judge’s financial disclosure report must also be published online and easily searchable.

In his report, Roberts tried to simultaneously acknowledge the seriousness of the ethical violations pointed out by the Wall Street Journal and, as he wrote, “put these mistakes in context.” “[T]The judiciary takes this matter seriously,” he wrote. “We expect judges to abide by the highest standards. “However, he continued, “Of the 2.5 million civil cases filed in district cases during the nine years covered by the study, the 685 confirmed cases accounted for only a small percentage-less than 3% showed Any judge benefits from violations.

Roberts acknowledged that the judiciary needs to improve at a specific level — through stricter ethics training and better conflict-checking programs — and in a more abstract way, through “more attention to promoting a culture of compliance.” But he has no doubt that he believes this is for the judiciary and not Congress. He wrote that the administrative office of the US Court of Justice “is already cooperating with committees of the Judicial Conference…has the jurisdiction to resolve these issues.”

Concerns about the justice department’s response to allegations of sexual harassment in the workplace — the subject of Roberts’ 2018 year-end report — have been treated similarly. In 2021, the members of both parties introduced the 2021 Judicial Accountability Act to ensure that (among other things) judicial employees enjoy the same protection against discrimination as other government employees and private sector employees. On August 25, Judge Rosalyn Mauskopf, Director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Court of Justice, wrote to the House Judiciary Committee, stating that the Judicial Conference opposed the bill.

In his 2021 report, Roberts reiterated that a panel of judges and judicial administrators concluded in 2018 that, despite several high-profile and serious incidents, “inappropriate workplace behavior in the judiciary Not universal.” Roberts pointed out that the Judicial Conference passed recommendations to “ensure that every court employee enjoys a workplace free of uncivilization and disrespect.”So although he “appreciates[d] Members of Congress have expressed continuous concern about this important issue,” he assured them (and the public), “The Judicial Conference and its committees remain fully involved. “

Roberts summarized what he called “a mysterious but important issue in judicial management”-the procedure for allocating patent cases in federal trial courts. In a letter to Roberts on November 2, D-Vt. Sens. Patrick Leahy and Thom Tillis of RN.C. pointed out that a judge in the West District of Texas accounts for approximately 25% of all patent litigation currently in Domestic to be determined. The senators asked Roberts to “instruct the Judicial Conference to conduct research on actual and potential abuses caused by the current situation” and to “complete this report no later than May 1, 2022.”

Roberts observed “[t]Two important and sometimes competing values ??are controversial”—the random assignment of cases and the idea of ??district judges as generalists, and Congress’ intention to create districts and departments, “so that litigants can be represented by federal judges related to their communities. Serve. “This judicial administration issue,” Roberts concluded, “provides another good example of the autonomous agency of frontline judges that is best suited to study and resolve – and to cooperate with Congress in the event. It is necessary to modify the law. “

This article is Originally published in Howe on the Court.