THE AMERICAN BAR Association has announced that its Standing Committee on Federal Judiciary will continue its volunteer public service of evaluating nominees for federal judicial appointment, reporting its findings directly to individual members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In open letters to the American public and to the legal profession, ABA President Martha Barnett explained the historic role of the ABA standing committee. "Federal judges are the ultimate guardians of the rights of all Americans. To ensure that they are independent from partisan politics, the Constitution guarantees them lifetime tenure. No one should be appointed to such a position who is not fully competent to undertake it," she wrote, pledging that the committee will continue to serve the public with objective evaluations of nominees’ professional qualifications. Barnett first committed the association to continue its independent peer evaluations during a news conference that took place immediately after a March 22 announcement by the Bush Administration that it would submit nominations to the Senate Judiciary Committee without consulting the ABA standing committee.

"Because the American Bar Association believes the public wants judges who are professionally qualified, we will continue with our volunteer efforts. …We will not let the public down," said Barnett.

The Bush announcement met criticism from the nation’s media. An editorial in the Washington Post noted that some members of the U.S. Senate had called the ABA’s evaluation "the gold standard by which judicial candidates are judged."

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