{"id":3707,"date":"2026-01-05T19:20:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T23:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/?p=3707"},"modified":"2026-01-10T22:42:52","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T02:42:52","slug":"not-enough-respect-for-the-judiciary-or-too-much-judge-james-c-ho","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/not-enough-respect-for-the-judiciary-or-too-much-judge-james-c-ho\/","title":{"rendered":"Not Enough Respect for the Judiciary\u2014Or Too Much? \u2013 Judge James C. Ho"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Not Enough Respect for the Judiciary\u2014Or Too Much? Arrogance and the Myth of Judicial Supremacy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In recent months, we\u2019ve heard a lot of judges complain that the judiciary doesn\u2019t get enough respect.\u00a0I have a different take. I wonder sometimes if the judiciary gets too much respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was a litigator\u2014and before then, a lawyer in the legislative and executive branches\u2014I detested the self-importance and subordination to elite approval that have pervaded the judicial branch for as long as I\u2019ve been a student of it. And since becoming a judge myself, I confess that my views haven\u2019t changed. If anything, they\u2019ve been reinforced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve watched as federal judges stood by and done nothing, as cultural elites bombarded certain Justices and judges with absurd ethical complaints. As the Justice Department refused to prosecute individuals for harassing certain Justices at their own homes. As elite law schools allowed students to disrupt events to protest certain judicial decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t until this year\u2014following the inauguration of a new President\u2014that the Federal Judges Association suddenly found its voice, and suddenly discovered a crisis over judicial independence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After years of silence, it\u2019s obvious that these concerns are not sincere, but strategic. What they\u2019re really championing is not judicial independence, but judicial supremacy. What we\u2019re really seeing in the judiciary is not principle, but arrogance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, arrogance is such a longstanding and pervasive problem in the judiciary that a number of terms have been coined over the years to capture the phenomenon.\u00a0I\u2019ve spent more time as a litigator than as a judge. For those of us who have been litigators, I\u2019m sure we all have our own stories and experiences dealing with judicial pomposity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Too many judges think that they\u2019re better than other people. Too many judges have an overinflated view of their intelligence and their abilities. Too many judges think they know politics\u2014when they don\u2019t. Too many judges think they know national security\u2014when they don\u2019t. In short, too many judges have forgotten the virtue and value of humility. And I think a big part of the blame goes to the notion of judicial supremacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Law students are taught\u2014implicitly, if not explicitly\u2014to venerate (if not worship) judges.\u00a0When the truth is that we should really regard judges more like bureaucrats. Judges and bureaucrats have at least one thing in common, under our current system. If you don\u2019t like your Senator or your Representative, if you disagree with the President or his Cabinet, you can vote them out of office. Their jobs are subject to the will of the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if you have life tenure, there\u2019s a big opportunity, and thus a great temptation, to become arrogant\u2014whether it\u2019s constitutional life tenure in the federal judiciary, or de facto life tenure in the bowels of the administrative state. It\u2019s why I\u2019ve written about federal civil service laws as an affront to the President\u2019s executive power under Article II of the Constitution. And it\u2019s why I\u2019ve written about judicial supremacy as a distortion of the judicial power under Article III.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Click here\u00a0<\/a>to continue reading the full piece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Not Enough Respect for the Judiciary\u2014Or Too Much? Arrogance and the Myth of Judicial Supremacy In recent months, we\u2019ve heard a lot of judges complain that the judiciary doesn\u2019t get enough respect.\u00a0I have a different take. I wonder sometimes if the judiciary gets too much respect. When I was a litigator\u2014and before then, a lawyer in the legislative and executive branches\u2014I detested the self-importance and subordination to elite approval that have pervaded the judicial branch […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[73,72],"tags":[143,144,92,83],"class_list":["post-3707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-obiter-dicta","category-per-curiam","tag-judicial-independence","tag-judicial-supremacy","tag-legal-profession","tag-obiter-dicta"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZSiL-XN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3707\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}