my law flashcards
“ignorance of the laws of the land hath ever been esteemed dishonourable in those who are intrusted by their country to maintain, to administer, and to amend them.”
Sir William Blackstone he refers to god as the creator
“Politics…[is] one of the most important and possibly the most noble of the human undertakings: the processes concerned with the authoritative determination of a society’s goals and ideals; mobilization of its resources to achieve those goals and ideals; and distribution of rights, duties, costs, benefits, rewards, and punishments among members of that society.”
Walter murphy
“by their human nature most men and women can reason objectively about what is morally good or bad for themselves and others [and thus implement NL
Sir William Blackstone
“Where the law is overruled or obsolete, I see destruction hanging over the community; where it is sovereign over the authorities and they it’s humble servants, I discern the presence of salvation and every blessing Heaven sends on a society.”
plato
“It was in juristic reasoning that natural law concepts were extensively used, for the authority of the opinions of the jurists in their responses depended upon the reasonableness of their comments
Aristotle
“True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of
universal application, unchanging and everlasting;…We
cannot be freed from its obligations by senate or
people,… [T]here will not be different laws at Rome and
at Athens, or different laws now and in the future, but
one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all
nations and all times, and there will be one master and
ruler, that is, God, over us all, for he is the author of this
law, its promulgator, and its enforcing judge. Whoever is
disobedient is fleeing from himself and denying his
human nature, and by reason of this very fact he will
suffer the worst penalties, even if he escapes what is
commonly considered punishment.”
CICERO, MARCUS TULLIUS
“…[L]aw does not prescribe every act of every virtue, but only those which are ordained to the common good….”
Saint Thomas Aquinas
Thus, when the Supreme Being formed the universe, and created matter out of nothing, he impressed certain principles upon that matter, from which it can never depart, and without which it would cease to be. …”
Sir William Blackstone
“Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator, for he is entirely a dependent being. … And … conform to his Maker’s will.”
Sir William Blackstone
God created matter with rules for perpetual direction, and endued man “with free-will to conduct himself in all parts of life,” & “laid down certain immutable laws of human nature, whereby that free-will is in some degree regulated and restrained, and gave him also the faculty of reason to discover the purport of those laws
Sir William Blackstone
Where the two parties must go to a third who is an officer, it is as evident to them as to the observer that they are no longer going to a disinterested third. Instead they are introducing a third interest: that of the government, the church, the landowner, or whoever else appoints the official.”
Martin Shapiro
“Law is perfect reason, which commands those things that are proper and necessary and which prohibits contrary things.” Unlike John Austin (who comes later), Coke stresses reason more than authority to allow the CL to correct unreasonable statutes, customs, & Royal Prerogative.
Sir Edward Coke
’Procure reverence to king and the law.’” “A popular judge is a deformed thing.”
“Power is ever of greatest strength when it is civilly carried.”
“Do good to the people, love them and give them justice; but let it be as the Psalm sayeth…looking for nothing, neither praise nor profit.”
Francis Bacon
“That law can never be against reason, our lawyers are agreed: and that not the letter…but…the intention of the legislator, is the law.
) Thomas Hobbes,
The Americans have … three distinguishing characteristics of the judicial power: … [1] pronounce a decision only when litigation has arisen, he is [2] conversant only with special cases, and he [3] cannot act until the cause has been duly brought before the court. His position is therefore exactly the same as that of the magistrates of other nations, and yet he is invested with immense political power
Alexis de Tocqueville
“…the freedom which equality before the law had created was progressively destroyed as demands for another kind of equality arose. During the later empire the strict law was weakened [by]… a new social policy, the state increased its control over economic life.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero
“Thereafter, for a thousand years, the conception that legislation should serve to protect the freedom of the individual was lost. And when the art of legislation was rediscovered, it was the code of Justinian with its conception of a prince who stood above the law that served as the model on the Continent
hayek
During the middle ages the state could not ‘itself create or make law, and of course as little abolish or violate law, because this would mean to abolish justice itself, it would be absurd, a sin, a rebellion against God who alone creates law.’ For centuries it was recognized doctrine that kings or any other human authority could only declare or find the existing law, or modify abuses that had crept in, and not create law
hayek
“even if we confine our observation to the existing condition of Europe, we shall soon be convinced that the ‘rule of law’… is peculiar to England, or to those countries which…have inherited English traditions. In almost every continental community the executive exercises far wider discretionary authority in the matter of arrest, of temporary imprisonment, of expulsion from its territory, and the like, than…in England; and a study of European politics now and again reminds English readers that wherever there is discretion there is room for arbitrariness, and that in a republic no less than under a monarchy discretionary authority on the part of the government must mean insecurity for legal freedom on the part of its subjects” ).
dicey
“… an act in law shall worke no wrong.
“… no man shall take advantage of his owne wrong.
“The reason of the law is the life of the law;
Agreement “cannot make that good which the law maketh void.”
“The common law has no controller…but the high court of parliament; and if it be not abrogated or altered by parliament, it remains still.”
The CL “appeareth in…Magna Charta and other statutes (which for the most part are affirmations of the common law) in the original writs, in judiciall records, and in our bookes of termes and yeares.
“three things be favoured in law; life, liberty, and dower.”
Sir Edward Coke (
“Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man’s mind move in charity, rest in Providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.”
Francis Bacon
“…one of the key elements of whig constitutionalism was that the Crown’s authority was limited by the ancient constitution, which was defined by custom and had existed, as Coke put it, from ‘time out of mind as man.’”
Jason S. Crye, Roger Williams
“There being nothing more essential to the freedom of a state, than that the people should be governed by the laws, and that justice be administered by such only as are accountable for mal-administration, it is hereby further declared that all proceedings touching the lives, liberties and estates of all the free people of this commonwealth, shall be according to the laws of the land, and that the Parliament will not meddle with ordinary administration, or the executive part of the law: it being the principle [sic] part of this, as it hath been of all former Parliaments, to provide for the freedom of the people against arbitrariness in government.
hayek
The end of the law is, not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings capable of laws, where there is no law there is no freedom. For liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others; which cannot be where there is no law: and is not, as we are told, a liberty for every man to do what he lists. (For who could be free when every other man’s humour might domineer over him?) But a liberty to dispose, and order as he lists, his person, actions, possessions, and his whole property, within the allowance of those laws under which he is, and therein not to be the subject of the arbitrary will of another, but freely follow his own.” – John Locke, Second Treatise, Section 57, .
locke
