North Dakota Chief U.S. District Judge Dan Hovland has rejected as unconstitutional the state's muzzle rule on judicial candidates. His decision, which agrees with a U.S. Supreme Court finding in a Minnesota case, means a candidate can no longer be disciplined by a state Supreme Court committee for responding to questions on issues that might reach his courtroom in one form or another.

The gag order violates a candidate's free-speech rights, Hovland said.

The "commit clause" of the state's Code of Judicial Conduct is well-intentioned. Every courtroom case has its own circumstances, and a candidate who hints that a future decision might turn on his philosophy or predilection rather than on the law applied to the unique circumstances of a particular case is setting himself up for a challenge.

He gives reason to worry that impartial justice would not be done in his courtroom.

At the same time, the present rule - and it is a rule, not law - leaves a candidate with nothing much to talk about beyond his resume: education, work experience, affiliations, family and the like. This seems more suitable for a candidate for county treasurer than for a candidate for state district court or the state Supreme Court.

After all, we have to live with these people for a long time - six years for a district judge, 10 years for a Supreme Court justice - and should be able to ascertain the broad outlines of what we are getting. Whether that should go as far as wanted by the North Dakota Family Alliance, which brought the case to Hovland, is something else.

The alliance sued last fall when most judicial candidates refused to respond to a questionaire inquiring into their opinions on abortion, homosexual rights, prayer at school and display of the Ten Commandments. It also asked about membership in groups from the National Rifle Association to the Sierra Club. The idea was compilation of a voters guide.

This raises warning flags, and it is doubtless the kind of thing the state Supreme Court's committee on judicial standards had in mind when it wrote the commit clause. The committee's present chairman, Brian Neugebauer, worries: "People will be elected who may not be competent to be a judge, but they're on the right side of an issue with a majority of the people."

In his opinion, Hovland provides some common-sense guidance for candidates. Candidates always have the right not to respond, Hovland says - and the discreet candidate will so decline when to speak "may indeed create a serious ethical dilemma for himself or herself that would require recusal at a later date."

But will the demagogue be so restrained? The courtroom is probably protected in either case, but a new difficulty is presented to candidates - and to voters, who will have to decide if a reticent candidate is being judicious or merely evasive.

Voters have to make this decision all the time about candidates for other offices. But other officeholders do not hold the scales of justice in their hands and make decisions affecting people's liberty and property.

It is a nice problem - protection of the integrity of the courtroom versus free speech, truth in packaging and the voter's right to know. We should learn a lot in the next election cycle.