If one adjudicated a case (concerning contested property) and ruled in favor of one party and against another, or he ruled an item impure or pure or the ruled it forbidden or permitted, and likewise if witnesses testified about the property all of these (the judges and witnesses) are allowed to buy the item [in which they played a role in permitting or invalidating]. However, the sages said, keep far away from unseemliness and from anything resembling it.Here the sages give sound advice. If I am a judge and I award someone lost property and then he turns around and sells it to me, doesn't that look fishy? Have I ruled in accordance with his claims because I knew he would sell it to me at a fair price?
The answer may be no, however just by raising the question I have planted in your mind the question of my honesty and integrity. We live in a world where those two values are so easily lost. The sages are right. If there is a change it might seem fishy, avoid any hint of it, even if it is a fair (and smart) purchase.
In US legal terms the Code of Judicial Conduct requires judges to avoid "the appearance of impropriety." It's a deliberately broad standard designed to capture the same idea.
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