U.S. justices' conflicts halt apartheid appeal

[flashl]

Source: IHT

WASHINGTON: Financial and personal conflicts of interest affecting four Supreme Court justices left the court without a quorum last week and unable to decide whether to hear an appeal brought by more than 50 companies that did business in apartheid-era South Africa.

As a result, the Supreme Court announced on Monday that a lower court's judgment allowing the high-profile lawsuit against the companies to move forward was automatically affirmed.

...

The outcome calls attention to the occasionally uncomfortable consequences of the justices' ownership of stock in individual companies. With solitary recusals being much more frequent, a 4-to-4 deadlock is a more common outcome than an inability to proceed with the case at all.

...

Whether the apartheid case, which seeks $400 billion in damages from the corporate defendants, ever gets to trial remains highly uncertain, despite the Supreme Court's inability to act on the companies' request to dismiss it.

IHT

Read more: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/13/america/13scotus.php

[saigon68]

1. Disgusting

[cstanleytech]

2. Well atleast they did recuse themselves it looks like and

I really respect kennedy for his especially since I believe it only lists his reason because his son works for a company involved in it and it did not say he owned stock directly.
That aside I wonder if its time for all supreme court justices to be required to put any stocks they own into a blindtrust which they do not know what they own nor are they allowed to try and find out.

[nradisic]

3. What a joke?

You're kidding? Right? The Republicans have made us a real banana republic. That is proof that Supreme Court Judges must not be allowed to own stocks.....Why? They have a lifetime job and their retirement is fully paid for by the taxpayers. Enough already.

Congress must pass a law ASAP.

[wpelb]

4. But what about family members?

If justices recuse themselves because of issues involving stock ownership by family members, should Congress pass laws requiring family members to put their stocks in a blind trust as well? Unfortunately, I don't see any practical solution to this problem; the fact that members of the Court were honest (and honorable) enough to recuse themselves from this case due to conflicts or potential conflicts of interest is the best we can hope for. Let's hope the judges on the lower courts that hear this case and others like it are similarly honorable.