Ohio’s most powerful court ought to operate with the greatest possible transparency to promote confidence in the justice system. Instead, a process for resolving an ethics complaint against a sitting justice shields the legal reasoning behind its dismissal and keeps secret the identities of the judges hearing the matter.

Judges aren’t snowflakes; they are accustomed to controversial decisions. They take heat with grace. Why can’t the public know which panel of three judges cleared Supreme Court Justice Sharon Kennedy, who to many ordinary citizens — but apparently not to a trained legal eye — appears to have crossed an ethical line?

Kennedy was the keynote speaker at a March fundraiser for the Greater Toledo Right to Life, an anti-abortion group. Her speech came two days after her court agreed to hear the Ohio attorney general’s appeal of lower-court decisions blocking the state from shuttering Toledo’s last abortion clinic, Capital Care Network.

Two ethics complaints were filed with the high court, one by Columbus attorney Bret Adams and the other by a ProgressOhio coalition of 51 groups and individuals that includes physicians, the Ohio National Organization for Women and NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio. Their complaint cites “a clear violation of the Ohio Code of Judicial Conduct’s call to ‘avoid the appearance of impropriety’ and ‘act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.’”

ProgressOhio recently announced its grievance against Kennedy had been dismissed and decried the opaque process.

“This dismissal shows that Ohio’s most powerful state court is also its least accountable,” ProgressOhio Executive Director Sandy Theis said. “Those handling the complaint refused to even identify the judges who cleared Kennedy.”

When a complaint is against one of the state's highest authorities, an Ohio Supreme Court justice , the names of those ruling on the merit of a complaint are kept secret. And they remain secret even after the decision is rendered.

In some ways, the process mirrors that of other state ethics or professional-board investigations; probes are kept secret to avoid scurrilous complaints from tarnishing reputations. But complaints involving a Supreme Court justice deserve greater transparency, because of the office's unique authority. In this case, an abortion-rights group has asked Kennedy to recuse herself from the Toledo clinic case, the complaints were made public and the justice's questionable actions were in public.

The process presents another problem: The review of a grievance against a justice is conducted by a three-member panel drawn by lot from each appellate district; Ohioans are left to guess which three. The conflict of interest is obvious: Lower-court judges review a superior who rules on lower court decisions. Should a negative ruling prompt retribution, without knowing which appeals judges were involved, how is the public to tell?

An obvious answer is to conduct complaints against justices with greater transparency. Instead, Ohio’s secret process creates nettlesome doubts about the legitimacy of the review.

Kennedy denies any wrongdoing; her speech didn’t mention abortion or any pending case. But the file in the case will not be made public unless Kennedy consents to its release.

The justice should do so quickly, to clear doubts and her reputation. And then the high court should modernize its process for handling complaints against one of its own. This is disappointing given that this court has been open with the public. This falls short of its own standard.