The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has just released a new Code of Conduct for the first time in the history of the court after pressure from critics, who called multiple judges “corrupt”. Multiple Supreme Court justices have accepted gifts from wealthy political donors, ranging from private jet rides to superyacht vacations to an almost $300,000 motorhome. Many are calling this new Code of Conduct a joke, as the code states that only individual justices can decide recusal (withdrawal of a judge) issues.

Multiple current Supreme Court justices, such as Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito, have accepted gifts from wealthy benefactors. Some of these citizens had a case before the court, and some were major political donors. For instance, Clarence Thomas received a superyacht vacation from Harlan Crow, VIP sports games at the University of Nebraska from David Sokol, and an invitation to an exclusive private golf club owned by H. Wayne Huizenga. All of these billionaires have similar political ideologies to justice Thomas. This has, of course, drawn criticism.

Critics have claimed that this new Code of Conduct puts into writing the rules these justices followed when they accepted gifts from their wealthy “friends”. There is also the fact that in this code, only the justices can decide recusal issues, and that if a citizen believes that the justices are corrupt, there is no system in place to enforce the newly written rules against a justice.