Kavanaugh on rebuilding trust in judicial system: 'Consistency builds respect': Reports

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh said Friday that “consistency builds respect” when it comes to trust in the U.S. judicial system Friday, according to The Washington Post.

“Individual decisions don’t have to be popular. … The losing party has to respect the decision,” Kavanaugh said at a judicial conference Friday, the Post reported.

“Consistency builds respect,” Kavanaugh continued. “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.”

A CNN poll from February found that most Americans do not trust the Supreme Court to make the “right decisions” when it comes to legal cases related to the 2024 election. When they were asked if they trusted the nation’s highest court on the issue, 58 percent of the respondents either said “not at all” or “just some.” Eleven percent said they trusted the court “a great deal” on the topic, and 35 percent said they trusted it “a moderate amount.”

Kavanaugh also noted “unpopular” decisions by previous iterations of the Supreme Court, stating that “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,” per The AP.

“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.