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Judicial disqualification, also referred to as recusal, refers to the act of abstaining from participation in an official action such as a legal proceeding due to a conflict of interest of the presiding court official or administrative officer. Applicable statutes or canons of ethics may provide standards for recusal in a given proceeding or matter. Providing that the judge or presiding officer must be free from disabling conflicts of interest makes the fairness of the proceedings less likely to be questioned. ==Recusal in the United States== In the United States, the term "recusal" is used most often with respect to court proceedings. Two sections of Title 28 of the United States Code (the Judicial Code) provide standards for judicial disqualification or recusal. Section 455, captioned "Disqualification of justice, judge, or magistrate judge," provides that a federal judge "shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned." The section also provides that a judge is disqualified "where he has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party, or personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding"; when the judge has previously served as a lawyer or witness concerning the same case or has expressed an opinion concerning its outcome; or when the judge or a member of his or her immediate family has a financial interest in the outcome of the proceeding. 28 U.S.C. Section 144, captioned "Bias or prejudice of judge," provides that under circumstances, when a party to a case in a United States District Court files a "timely and sufficient Motion that the judge before whom the matter is pending has a personal bias or prejudice either against him or in favor of an adverse party," the case shall be transferred to another judge. The general rule is that, to warrant recusal, a judge's expression of an opinion about the merits of a case, or his familiarity with the facts or the parties, must have originated in a source outside the case itself. This is referred to in the United States as the "extra-judicial source rule" and was recognized as a general presumption, although not an invariable one, in the 1994 U.S. Supreme Court decision in ''Liteky v. United States''. At times justices or judges will recuse themselves ''sua sponte'' (on their own motion), recognizing that facts leading to their disqualification are present. However, where such facts exist, a party to the case may suggest recusal. Generally, each judge is the arbiter of a motion for the judge's recusal, which is addressed to the judge's conscience and discretion. However, where lower courts are concerned, an erroneous refusal to recuse in a clear case can be reviewed on appeal or, under extreme circumstances, by a petition for a writ of prohibition. In certain special situations, circumstances, that would otherwise call for recusal of a judge or group of judges, may be disregarded, when otherwise no judge would be available to hear the case. For example, if a case concerns a salary increase payable to a judge, that judge would ordinarily be disqualified from hearing the case. However, if the pay increase is applicable to all of the judges in the court system, the judge will keep the case, because the grounds for recusal would be equally applicable to any other judge. The principle that a judge will not be disqualified when the effect would be that no judge could hear the case is sometimes referred to as the "rule of necessity".〔See ''United States v. Will'', 449 U.S. 200 (1980).〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Judicial disqualification」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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