I'm sorry I can't easily lay hands on a link. My statement comes from various speeches given by Justices over the last few decades, which are typically to legal gatherings or to law students. The point is slightly different from the one Roberts made in the article you linked to.
In that he's talking about a perception that the court is not impartial and that the justices are seen as taking positions, and even (by implication) instruction from political parties. This concern, by the way, has existed for a long time, at least to the era of Dredd Scott if not earlier; presidents from Lincoln to FDR and, to a lesser extent to recent times have made the same charge.
And that is the sense in which I have heard various justices (since the 1970s -- I'm an old fart -- through a speech Roberts gave a few years ago which I couldn't find by searching -- in which they need to manage the perception of partiality because the Court is a participant in public life, and indeed in political public life. The sense in which I was quoting is that they are political actors though the entity they are working to protect is the credibility of their institution.
I have no illusion that any judge is superhuman and able to be impartial. But it's interesting to see how Justices' voting tends to shift as they are on the court for a while. It implies a certain independence of mind, though perhaps not from each other.
In that he's talking about a perception that the court is not impartial and that the justices are seen as taking positions, and even (by implication) instruction from political parties. This concern, by the way, has existed for a long time, at least to the era of Dredd Scott if not earlier; presidents from Lincoln to FDR and, to a lesser extent to recent times have made the same charge.
And that is the sense in which I have heard various justices (since the 1970s -- I'm an old fart -- through a speech Roberts gave a few years ago which I couldn't find by searching -- in which they need to manage the perception of partiality because the Court is a participant in public life, and indeed in political public life. The sense in which I was quoting is that they are political actors though the entity they are working to protect is the credibility of their institution.
I have no illusion that any judge is superhuman and able to be impartial. But it's interesting to see how Justices' voting tends to shift as they are on the court for a while. It implies a certain independence of mind, though perhaps not from each other.