The bloody book of law. William Shakespeare, Othello I iii 67
The laws of England are at my commandment. The Hollow Crown: Henry IV part II ***** starring Jeremy Irons & Simon Russell Beale & Tom Hiddleston & Alun Armstrong & David Bamber & Julie Walters & Niamh Cusack & David Dawson & Michaelle Dockery et al, director Richard Eyre, Falstaff, BBC 2012
The law is reason, free from passion. Artistotle
The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law. Aristotle
The great mistake is that of looking upon men as virtuous, or thinking that they can be made so by laws. Henry St John, Lord Bolingbroke
Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why does it not encourage its citizens to be on the alert to point out its faults, and do better than it would have them? Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays
If ... the machine of government ... is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. ibid.
Under the Tories, the judges have been viciously opposed to trade unions and Labour councils. Many of the decisions to sequester the miners’ union funds during the great strike of 1984-85 were extremely suspect, even in Tory law. When, partly in protest against Murdoch’s union busting at Wapping, Labour controlled Derbyshire County Council decided by democratic vote to move its advertising for teachers away from the Murdoch owned Times Education Supplement to The Guardian, the Tories took the case to the High Court where the judges denounced it as contrary to natural justice and ordered the people’s money to be poured back into Murdoch’s coffers. This outrageous decision, wholly unsustainable by any rational legal process, could not be explained in any other terms but sheer class prejudice. Paul Foot, Judges’ Ruling
But the law is not neutral. The history of the working class movement over the last 150 years shows the opposite. From the hanging of the Luddites to the persecution of the Chartists to the imprisonment and execution of militants and trade unionists all the way down to the Shrewsbury’ pickets trial in 1973, the story is one of the law being used to protect the people who own property from the people who produce it.
The class which controls property controls the law. 86% of the judges, who are not elected, were educated at public school.
The entire legal profession is drawn almost exclusively from one class. That class uses its laws for its own purposes. If necessary, as with the recent House of Lords decision on the Immigration Act, it will make law retrospective. In that case, it referred the law back to ‘catch’ illegal immigrants who came in legally before the Act was passed.
The Tories make laws, reverse laws, ignore laws, make laws retrospective to protect their property and increase it at the expense of the workers. Paul Foot, article April 1974, ‘Clay Cross Double-Crossed’
It costs £15,000 to study for bar exams on top of a degree. Richard Bilton, Who Gets the Best Jobs? BBC 2011
Liberties depend on the silence of the law. Thomas Hobbes, 1588-1679, Leviathan
Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place. Frederic Bastiat, The Law
No man’s life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session. Gideon John Tucker
That the individual shall have full protection in person and in property is a principle as old as the common law; but it has been found necessary from time to time to define anew the exact nature and extent of such protection. Political, social, and economic changes entail the recognition of new rights, and the common law, in its eternal youth, grows to meet the demands of society.
The press is overstepping in every direction the obvious bounds of propriety and of decency. Gossip is no longer the resource of the idle and of the vicious, but has become a trade, which is pursued with industry as well as effrontery. To satisfy a prurient taste the details of sexual relations are spread broadcast in the columns of the daily papers ... The intensity and complexity of life, attendant upon advancing civilization, have rendered necessary some retreat from the world, and man, under the refining influence of culture, has become more sensitive to publicity, so that solitude and privacy have become more essential to the individual; but modern enterprise and invention have, through invasions upon his privacy, subjected him to mental pain and distress, far greater than could be inflicted by mere bodily injury. Louis D Brandeis & Warren, The Right to Privacy
Your honor, I feel that I have been convicted of violating an unjust statute. I will continue in the future, as I have in the past, to oppose this law in any way I can. Any other action would be in violation of my ideal of academic freedom – that is, to teach the truth as guaranteed in our constitution, of personal and religious freedom. I think the fine is unjust. John Thomas Scopes, cited World’s Most Famous Court Trial p313
We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions. Ronald Reagan
During Queen Victoria’s reign over a hundred acts of parliament for the benefit of children were passed into law. Ian Hislop’s Age of the Do-Gooders II: Suffer the Little Children, BBC 2010
God so commanded, and left that command
Sole daughter of his voice; the rest, we live
Law to our selves, our reason is our law. John Milton, Paradise Lost 9:652
Here the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to be to restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work. John Milton, Areopagitica 1644
Taste cannot be controlled by law. Thomas Jefferson
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual. Thomas Jefferson
All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. Thomas Jefferson
It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape. Thomas Jefferson
[W]e may safely affirm (though contradicted by all the judges and writers on earth) that Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law. Thomas Jefferson
cf.
Christianity is part of the laws of England. Matthew Hale, 1609-76, English judge
‘No place’ in the law for Christianity: There is no place in British law for Christian beliefs ... two High Court judges said yesterday. Daily Telegraph article 1st March 2011
Lawyer: It’s not too late to go to law school, Arnold.
Arnold: I prefer to make my living honestly. Boardwalk Empire s1e8: Hold Me in Paradise, HBO 2010
Friend: Haven’t you heard about the smoking law?
Frank: We make our own laws. Lilyhammer IV: The Midwife starring Steven van Zandt & Trond Fausa Aurvag & Marian Saastad Ottesen & Steinar Sagen & Anne Krigsvoll et al, Netflix 2012
I don’t need tough guys; I need more lawyers. The Godfather III 1990 starring Al Pacino & Andy Garcia & Diane Keaton & Talia Shire & Sofia Coppola & George Hamilton & Bridget Fonda et al, director Francis Ford Coppola, Michael
A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns. Mario Puzo, The Godfather