House anti-corruption and Supreme Court ethics vote helps restore U.S.

Before the unsuccessful military coup to remove Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as president of Turkey in 2016, I was working with the leaders of the Turkish Justice Academy. They were honest, able judges who were inspired by the ability of judges in the United States to be impartial and independent of the president. Among other things, I was teaching about the importance of judicial proceedings’ and records’ being open to the media and the public, as they are in the United States as a way to hold judges accountable.

The day after the attempted coup, Erdoğan had all of my Turkish colleagues, and almost 3,000 other judges and prosecutors, arrested off of lists prepared before the coup for allegedly being part of a terrorist network. My colleagues report that many judges died in prison, some by suicide. Others were jailed for several years, and some still are, as Erdoğan has solidified his control of the judiciary.

With honest, independent judges out of the way, Erdoğan proceeded to jail thousands of professors, journalists and politicians, as well. This followed a pattern. Three years earlier prosecutors brought corruption charges against members of Erdoğan’s Cabinet and released a recording purported to reveal Erdoğan telling his son to get tens of millions in cash out of his house before it was searched. Erdoğan promptly removed the prosecutors.

In essence, judges and prosecutors in Turkey have been persecuted for striving to be like judges and prosecutors in the United States, working independently as part of the system of checks and balances needed to protect against the abuse of power by elected officials, which is important to democracy. Their plight is a reminder of the historic importance of the United States as an inspiring model and of the countless people around the world who have the courage of our convictions.

Persecuted judges in Turkey and elsewhere should be encouraged by the House of Representatives’ vote Wednesday on sweeping legislation, known as H.R. 1, to diminish unethical conduct by elected officials, including the president and the vice president, and by Supreme Court justices as well. Among other things, the bill would require a code of conduct for justices, who are the only U.S. judges not governed by an ethical code.

As the Brennan Center for Justice has reported, “Over the last two decades, almost all members of the Supreme Court have been criticized for engaging in behaviors that are forbidden to other federal court judges.” These include participating “in partisan convenings and fundraisers, accepting expensive gifts or travel, making partisan comments at public events or in the media, or failing to recuse themselves from cases involving apparent conflicts of interest, either personal or financial.”

The legitimacy of the Supreme Court depends on public confidence that its decisions are principled, not political. Rightly or wrongly, that confidence has been eroded by decisions perceived to be partisan, as well as by the partisan rancor accompanying recent confirmation battles. A code of conduct for the justices would increase public confidence in their decisions.

In addition, as the United States regularly advocates for transparency as a check against misconduct and corruption, confidence in the U.S. judiciary at home and abroad would be enhanced if the Supreme Court were, by statute, required to broadcast its proceedings and allow the broadcasting of proceedings in the lower federal courts. Senators who have unsuccessfully introduced legislation to do so can now renew that effort when acting on H.R. 1.

However, if the United States is to remain an inspiring model of democracy, much more than improvements concerning the Supreme Court is necessary. The new legislation recognizes this, as it is intended to “strengthen ethics rules for public servants, and implement other anti-corruption measures for the purpose of fortifying our democracy.” Those measures include requiring the president and the vice president to disclose their tax returns, prohibiting them from profiting from public expenditures and generally requiring that they adhere to the same ethical standards as all other government employees. H.R. 1 also includes measures to protect against foreign influence in U.S. elections.

However, the United States must do more than repair its democracy to restore its influence internationally. As Samantha Power, nominated by President Joe Biden to head the U.S. Agency for International Development, has rightly recognized, autocrats and populists are on the rise, and they are almost invariably corrupt. “Corruption is a key area of vulnerability for autocrats,” Power has noted. There is a “desire of citizens around the world to see corruption and lawlessness investigated by independent bodies, a general principle they should…