‘Rules usually have enforcement mechanisms’: Supreme Court justice seeks ethics panel

Justice Elena Kagan wants to see the Supreme Court appoint an ethics enforcement committee following controversies surrounding conflicts posed by lavish trips bankrolled for Justice Clarence Thomas.

During a Thursday conference, Kagan suggested to Chief Justice John Roberts that the court appoint “some sort of committee of highly respected judges with a great deal of experience and a reputation for fairness,” to oversee potential conflicts of interest, The Washington Post reported. While the Supreme Court adopted a formal ethics code last year, it faced heavy criticism for lacking accountability measures.

Read also: Elena Kagan stuns Trump attorney by asking if president could stage a coup

Kagan, one of the court's three liberals, hoped a new panel could change that.

“Rules usually have enforcement mechanisms attached to them, and this one, this set of rules, does not,” Kagan said, according to the Post. “However hard it is, we could and should try to figure out some mechanism for doing this.”

Kagan’s proposal comes at a time when confidence in the Supreme Court is “at historic lows,” the Post said. Just 16 percent of adults have complete confidence in the court, an AP-NORC poll showed, compared to 40 percent that expressed having hardly any confidence at all.