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This article is a critical analysis of a fundamental judicial ethic, the appearance of impartiality, an increasingly important public issue that is poorly understood and woefully underexamined in jurisprudence and academic literature. The ethic is pivotal to the determination of judicial disqualification, a/k/a recusal, and the public's fragile trust in the rule of law.The article explains how a mysterious metaphorical device, the “reasonable observer” (a descendant of the common law's “reasonable man”) has been subjectively applied in a confusing and inconsistent manner in judicial disqualification cases. The unexamined approach has unwittingly undermined the plain text and the mandatory ethical obligation of recusal (i.e., a judge must disqualify when his or her impartiality might reasonably be questioned).The discussion: (a) analyzes the theoretical underpinnings of the reasonable person-observer analytical tool (“heuristic”); (b) explains how American jurisprudence has glibly transmogrified the appearance-recusal precept; (c) provides a unique and starkly contrasting analytical perspective demonstrating how select common law-based jurisdictions (Australia, Canada, Singapore, South Africa, United Kingdom) have painstakingly examined and applied the widely-recognized norm of appearance-based impartiality; and (d) synthesizes the preceding theoretical and jurisprudential information to support a proposal for a recalibrated metric and a pragmatic, clarifying heuristic. The article concludes with a model provision, in the form of a guiding “commentary,” that summarizes the essential aspects of the appearance of bias precept. The article provides an interpretative approach that attempts to be faithful to the letter and spirit of the foundational judicial ethic.

Section 162 of the South African Companies Act 71 of 2008 empowers courts to declare directors delinquent and hence to disqualify them from office. This article compares the judicial disqualification of directors under this section with the equivalent provisions in the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States of America, which have all influenced the South African act. The article compares the classes of persons who have locus standi to apply to court to disqualify a director from holding office, as well as the grounds for the judicial disqualification of a director, the duration of the disqualification, the application of a prescription period and the discretion conferred on courts to disqualify directors from office. It contends that, in empowering courts to disqualify directors from holding office, section 162 of the South African Companies Act goes too far in certain respects.

The case concerned a two-week wildfire in September 2007 that destroyed nearly 65,000 acres of forest in northern California. Because of the nearby Moonlight Peak, the public came to know the incident as the \"Moonlight Fire.\" [...]the Department of Justice argued that questions surrounding social media use by judges would benefit from further development in the lower courts before the Supreme Court intervenes to take up the issue. [...]recasting the arguments in the Sierra Pacific Industries case using the ABA Model Code of Judicial Conduct5 might result in the following: Because of the judge's conduct \"following\" only one party in the case and \"tweeting\" the erroneous news headline about the ruling, the judge's conduct was a violation of Model Rule 1.2, failing to \"act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary\" and \"avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety\"; and Model Rule 2.9, initiating, permitting, or considering \"ex parte communications\" \"concerning a pending or impending matter\"; and Model Rule 2.10, making \"any public statement that might reasonably be expected to affect the outcome or impair the fairness of a matter pending or impending in any court.\" [...]as the proponents might make the argument, the judge should have recused himself under Model Rule 2.11(A), providing that \"a judge shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.\"

Last summer, the D.C. Circuit upheld a statute that gives the President the power to remove judges of the United States Tax Court. Kathleen and Peter Kuretski, a taxpayer couple, had challenged the constitutionality of that provision, alleging that it granted an executive official the impermissible interbranch power to remove officials of the judicial branch. Resolving decades of tension about the constitutional status of these Article I courts, the D.C. Circuit held that the Tax Court is an executive branch entity, and thus the President may constitutionally exercise intrabranch removal power over its judges. This Comment demonstrates that what seems like a straightforward attempt to save the Tax Court from constitutional peril has dangerous implications elsewhere in the federal system.

Professor Amy Barrett captured national headlines as nominee to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals when Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned her fitness for office on the basis of her devotion to her Catholic faith. The dogma lives loudly within you, admonished Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein. And that's of concern when you come to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for, for years in this country. Dogma and law, Senator Feinstein also said, are two different things, and I think whatever a religion is, it has its own dogma. The law is totally different. These conclusions do not mean that now Judge Barrett would replace the law with Catholic dogma. She and Professor Garvey do not, as many others have,8 argue that the death penalty must be unconstitutional because it offends their own personal sense of justice. Nor do they advocate finding pretexts to overturn or avoid issuing death sentences whenever possible.

[...]the fears often voiced by litigators who decline to file disqualification motions include: (1) a motion to disqualify the judge will possibly incur the judge's wrath in this case, if the judge remains on the case, or, if disqualified, in other cases the attorney has before the challenged judge; (2) the next judge assigned after a successful disqualification motion will be worse than the recused judge; (3) other judges will view the lawyer filing the recusal motion as a troublemaker or a judge basher; (4) the litigator's attempt, whether successful or unsuccessful, to disqualify a judge will create the impression that the litigator is unethical; and (5) the challenged judge may view the disqualification motion as an attack on the judge's own judicial ethics. [...]a judge who is unaware of the basis for disqualification is in many situations disqualified nonetheless.