On Monday, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) with neither notice nor fanfare released a code of conduct signed by the nine justices after months of criticism over how the high court handles ethics questions.

The justices have for months been under fire from congressional Democrats and other court-watchers for their approach to ethics in light of recent reports that justices did not disclose luxury trips paid for by donors with business before the court. While lower courts are bound by a code of ethics, which some Supreme Court justices have said they voluntarily comply with, the high court had not been compelled to follow an ethics code.

The rules and principles included in the code of conduct, for the most part, are not new, a statement from the justices accompanying the ethics code said, noting that the high court “has long had the equivalent of common law ethics rules,” or rules stemming from a number of different sources – from statutory provisions, rules governing other federal judges and rules set by the Judicial Conference Committee on Codes of Conduct, among others.