Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh talked about trust in the U.S. judicial system during a judicial conference on Friday, according to The Washington Post.
Kavanaugh said, “Individual decisions don’t have to be popular. … The losing party has to respect the decision.”
He added, “Consistency builds respect. It’s showing up every day in the courtroom and trying to be respectful to the parties, to write your opinion in a way that’s clear and understandable, to get out when you’re speaking and try to explain, to the bar, the judicial process, to try to be transparent and to be impartial as a judge.”
According to a CNN poll from February, most Americans don’t trust the Supreme Court to make the “right decisions” regarding legal cases related to the 2024 election.
Fifty-eight percent of the respondents said they didn’t trust the court much or at all on this issue. Eleven percent said they trusted the court “a great deal,” and 35 percent said they trusted it “a moderate amount.”
Kavanaugh also mentioned unpopular decisions made by previous Supreme Court versions, saying, “and a lot of them are landmarks now that we accept as parts of the fabric of America, and the fabric of American constitutional law,” according to The Associated Press.
He also said that federal judges “stay as far away from politics as possible.”
“It’s an everyday thing. I don’t think it’s a ‘flip the switch.’ It’s showing up every day in the courtroom and trying to be respectful of the parties in a way that is clear and understandable,” Kavanaugh continued.
