Abstract
The judiciary of Bosnia and Herzegovina is in crisis. Despite extensive reforms and oversight from the international community since the war in the Balkans, it has recently been rocked by scandals ranging from politicization of the courts to outright corruption, and the problems may well stem from there being too much, rather than too little, judicial independence. It presents a powerful example for the U.S. Supreme Court, which is experiencing an ethics crisis of its own. If we hope to hold the American judiciary up as an example to other countries struggling to establish the Rule of Law, no less preserve our democracy, we need to find solutions within our own system of checks and balances. Congress has the power to act, and a variety of approaches are available that appear to be fully constitutional. But the polarized political environment in today’s Congress makes any such action unlikely at best. Given Congress’s paralysis, the Supreme Court needs to own up to its responsibility to foster public confidence in the courts, lest we be relegated to the class of countries, like Bosnia, characterized by Rule of Law dysfunction, where judicial independence is part of the problem. As we await action from the Supreme Court itself, the legitimacy of our courts, and of our system of government, hangs in the balance.