JUDICIAL INTEGRITY: STRENGTHENING OUR WISCONSIN COURTS
The League of Women Voters of Wisconsin has a strong position on judicial integrity: “Our vision for the courts is a system where all Wisconsin people have equal access to fair, unbiased decisions, that courts are reflective of the people they serve and are insulated from the corrosive impact of partisan politics and wealthy special interests.”
State courts hear 95 percent of all cases. Americans need to have confidence that their courts are independent and fair-minded. A brief discussion of the importance of our state judicial system is in order before we discuss how to strengthen our courts.
The Constitution and laws of each state establish the state courts which handle specific legal matters, i.e., probate, juvenile matters, family law, voting, criminal cases, contract, tort etc. State courts are the final arbiters of state laws and constitutions. State Courts’ interpretations of federal law or the U.S. Constitution are the only cases that can be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court which has the discretion to hear or not hear a case. State court judges are selected in a variety of ways, including election appointments for a given number of years appointments for life and a combination of these methods, i.e., appointments followed by an election. Voters disenfranchised by partisan legislatures, either through gerrymandering, unwarranted voting restrictions or unfair counting procedures seek redress through state court systems which generally work remarkably well where the judiciary firmly believes in the rule of law.
If a state court system has been politicized, voters are less likely to receive fair and just rulings. According to The Brennan Center for Justice, transparent, even-handed justice in our state courts is under threat in many ways. www.brennancenter.org
First and foremost, special interest groups have injected large sums of dark money into supreme court cases where the donors are undisclosed. Most state judges are elected in a way that lacks safeguards to protect their independence from special interests or political pressure, threatening their ability to apply the law fairly and without fear of retaliation, resulting in serious conflicts of interest.
Inadequate and ineffective recusal rules are damaging for litigants when judges are not required to step aside from cases when they are the beneficiaries of substantial spending in support of their election Furthermore, the politicization of the courts is another serious problem. Partisan lawmakers are pressuring judges for rulings that they dislike and working to manipulate just who ends up on the bench.
Lack of diversity is yet another problem facing our court system today. Without the diversity on the bench representing the communities the judges are supposed to serve, diverse perspectives are absent from judges’ deliberations, thereby calling into question the legitimacy of the court.
The American Bar Association (ABA) provides great guidance for governance and justice system strengthening in its Rule of Law Initiative (ROLI). This judicial reform program promotes greater independence, accountability and transparency in judicial systems, assists in drafting and implementing codes of judicial ethics, promotes judicial education and training and helps to enhance court administration and efficiency. More information is available at
https://www.americanbar.org/advocacy/rule_of_law/what-we-do/governance-justice-
system-strengthening/
In the next few blogs, we will discuss what we need to focus on to strengthen our courts: How judges are selected; how to implement recusal rules for all judges; how to change judicial public financing and protect against special interest influences and political pressure; and finally, how to promote ways to build a more diverse bench.
--Submitted by Joan Schwarz, LWVDC
