A controversy over free trips for judges has reached a crisis point, and Maine’s U.S. District Judge D. Brock Hornby has been asked to take a close look at the matter.

The conviction of Jack Abramoff and current investigations of members of Congress who have enjoyed lavish trips and other benefits from the notorious influence peddler and lobbyist have focused new attention on lobbying abuses.

Lobbying of lawmakers and executive officials is part of the system and will go on despite investigations and new regulations. But lobbying of judges is something else, since they must be our disinterested safeguard against corruption and our guarantor of adherence to fair play and constitutionality.

Critics maintain that the free trips for judges amount to an opportunity for lobbying them. A recent survey by Community Rights Counsel, a nonprofit public-interest law firm, brings to 349 the number of federal judges who took 1,158 junkets between 1992 and 2004, many of them undisclosed in required filings.

Sponsors of most of the trips are George Mason University’s Law and Economics Center, the Liberty Fund, and the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment (known by its acronym FREE). The study describes them as financed by foundations and corporate interests that promote free-market and pro-business agendas on issues that can come before the courts. The sessions are often at upscale resorts, where teaching sessions are mixed with socializing and recreation.

Defenders of the practice scoff at the idea that a judge could be influenced by taking part. Probably so, but in today’s world perception of a conflict of interest is best avoided.

What to do about it? Several moves are under way in Congress. Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., John Kerry, D-Mass., and Russ Feingold, D-Wis., have introduced legislation that would ban junkets and provide a fund for judges to pay their own way to continuing education programs. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., proposed creation of an inspector general for the judicial branch, “to serve as a public watchdog to root out waste, fraud, and abuse.”

The courts themselves seem to be taking the lead on the issue. The Judicial Conference, which makes policy for administration of the federal courts, has asked a subcommittee chaired by Judge Hornby to re-examine “private educational programs for judges, financial disclosure requirements related to the programs, and improved identification of possible conflicts of interest that require recusal.”

Judge Hornby shares wide concern among the judiciary about the inspector general proposal, agreeing with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who called it “scary.” He himself went on one of those subsidized educational trips 20 years ago, triggering critical editorials in Maine newspapers, including this one.

He says he has not done so since, simply because he wants to avoid any similar outcry. Judge Hornby quite rightly is reserving judgment on the justification for the trips, since that is a judgment to be made by his subcommittee.