Confirmation hearings began Monday for Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s first nominee to the Supreme Court. During her opening statement, Sotomayor vowed a commitment to “impartial justice.”

Judge Sonia Sotomayor: “Throughout my seventeen years on the bench, I have witnessed the human consequences of my decisions. Those decisions have not been made to serve the interest of any one litigant, but always to serve the larger interest of impartial justice. In the past month, many senators have asked me about my judicial philosophy. Simple: fidelity to the law. The task of a judge is not to make law; it is to apply the law.”

If confirmed, Judge Sotomayor will become the nation’s first Latino justice and only the third female justice.