Philadelphia bar leader chastises Supreme Court justice Ginsburg
Joining a chorus of critics, Philadelphia Bar Chancellor Gaetan Alfano said Friday that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg erred when she publicly disparaged Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Joining a chorus of critics, Philadelphia Bar Chancellor Gaetan Alfano said Friday that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg erred when she publicly disparaged Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Ginsburg also issued a statement Friday, calling her remarks "ill-advised" and saying that she regretted making them. A growing number of legal experts said it was inappropriate for a sitting Supreme Court justice, or any judge, to weigh in on a political campaign.
"Partisan statements can undermine the public's confidence that a judge will decide cases on the merits as opposed to political considerations," Alfano said on behalf of the 12,000-lawyer Philadelphia Bar Association. "To protect the rule of law, partisan statements by judges should be avoided."
Alfano was equally pointed recently in characterizing complaints by Trump that a judge of Mexican descent overseeing a lawsuit against Trump University couldn't be impartial because of Trump's criticism of Mexican immigrants.
"It is appalling that a presidential candidate would criticize a judge based upon that judge's ethnicity," he said."
Ginsburg, in a New York Times interview published Monday, said, "I can't imagine what this place would be - I can't imagine what the country would be - with Donald Trump as our president. For the country, it could be four years. For the court, it could be - I don't even want to contemplate that."
She also said the prospect of a Trump presidency led her to think about moving to New Zealand.
Alfano, who far more than past Philadelphia bar chancellors has chosen to take positions on high-profile issues, said the ethics rules that bar lower court judges from participating in partisan debates should apply to members of the Supreme Court. "When judges inject themselves into the political process, you always run the risk of the public perception that if the judge issues an opinion, that decision is motivated for political reasons," he said.
Kermit "Kim" Roosevelt, a constitutional-law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, points out that technically there is no judicial code of conduct for Supreme Court members because it is unclear who would enforce one. Even so, justices acknowledge that they, too, must adhere to judicial ethics rules. "What Justice Ginsburg said was in violation of judicial ethics rules," he said.
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