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Why aren’t there more company directors in jail? … Pipa Alpha … Not one company director has been sent to jail for any of those … The Jerry Archer Wing: we’ll open one up, start shovelling in the pinstripes … ‘Are you sure this is part of the Masonic ritual?’ … The law is completely inadequate … There have been five prosecutions for corporate manslaughter since that law came into play … You have got more chance of getting justice if you are a goat in Britain. Mark Thomas Comedy Product s6e3: Corporate Killing, Channel 4 2002
300 people killed at work each year … This is a class issue. ibid.
They were going to introduce this corporate killing. ibid.
An advert in the CBI: ‘Wanted: Mug’. ibid.
Over 100 of them are occurring on building sites, construction industry, these fatalities, and part of this is down to casualisation. ibid.
The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the muddy streets are muddiest near that leaden-headed old obstruction, appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old corporation, Temple Bar. And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln’s Inn Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery. Charles Dickens, Bleak House
Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. This scarecrow of a suit, has, in course of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what it means. The parties to it understand it least; but it has been observed that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five minutes, without coming to total disagreement as to all the premises. ibid.
This is the Court of Chancery, which has its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire, which has its worn-out lunatic in every madhouse and its dead in every churchyard, which has its ruined suitor with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress borrowing and begging through the round of every man’s acquaintance, which gives to monied might the means abundantly of wearying out the right, which so exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope, so overthrows the brain and breaks the heart, that there is not an honourable man among its practitioners who would not give – who does not often give – the warning, ‘Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come here!’ ibid.
The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself. ibid.
‘If the law supposes that,’ said Mr Bumble ... ‘the law is a ass – an idiot.’ Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, Mr Bumble
‘By the way, Doctor, I shall want your cooperation.’
‘I shall be delighted.’
‘You don’t mind breaking the law?’
‘Not in the least.’
‘Nor running a chance of arrest?’
‘Not in a good cause.’
‘Oh, the cause is excellent!’
‘Then I am your man.’
‘I was sure that I might rely on you.’ Arthur Conan Doyle, A Scandal in Bohemia
It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one. Voltaire, Zadig
These books are probably law books, and it is an essential part of the justice dispensed here that you should be condemned not only in innocence but also in ignorance. Franz Kafka, The Trial
Persecution is not an original feature of any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all law-religions, or religions established by law. Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man
But in these nice sharp quillets of the law,
Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw. William Shakespeare, I Henry VI II iv 17
I cannot justify whom the law condemns. William Shakespeare, The First Part of the Contention II Henry VI II iii 16, Gloucester
The first thing we do let’s kill all the lawyers. ibid. IV ii 78, Butcher
The world is not thy friend, nor the world’s law. William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet V ii 72, Romeo to Apothecary
The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.
’Tis mightiest in the mightiest ...
It is an attribute to God himself,
When mercy seasons justice. William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice IV i 181-185 & 192-194, Portia to Shylock
The world is still deceived with ornament.
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt
But, being seasoned with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil? In religion,
What damned error but some sober brow
Will bless it and approve it with a text,
Hiding the grossness with fair ornament? ibid. III ii 74-80, Bassiano to self
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy,
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. ibid. IV i 197
My deeds upon my head! I crave the law. ibid. IV i 206
To do a great right, do a little wrong. ibid. IV i 213, Bassiano to Portia and Shylock
Nay, take my life and all: pardon not that:
You take my house when you do take the prop
That doth sustain my house; you take my life
When you do take the means whereby I live. ibid. IV i 375
A rotten case abides no handling. William Shakespeare, II Henry IV IV i 159, Westmoreland
And oft ’tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law. William Shakespeare, Hamlet III iii 59-60, King
There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office...’ ibid. III i 73