Legislatures

"For much of its life, the European Parliament could have been justly labelled a 'multi-lingual talking shop'. But this is no longer the case: the EP is now one of the most powerful legislatures in the world both in terms of its legislative and executive oversight powers."

"The European parliament has suddenly come into its own. It marks another shift in power between the three central EU institutions. Last week's vote suggests that the directly elected MEPs, in spite of their multitude of ideological, national and historical allegiances, have started to coalesce as a serious and effective EU institution, just as enlargement has greatly complicated negotiations inside both the Council and Commission."

"America’s constitution had flaws, but it proved astonishingly robust. Europe’s at the end of the twentieth century was fragile. It sought to govern not a mostly homogeneous set of commonwealth states, but countries with distinct personalities, cultures and vulnerabilities. Few were ready to submerge them in a continental whole, as fashioned by the champions of ever closer union in Brussels. The European Commission and Parliament had both become unwieldy. The former’s bureaucratic expansion into everything from building regulations to food sizing and bat control was ridiculed. The impending eurozone was a gamble. Lacking the safety valve of internal devaluation or other adjustments, it would involve a severe loss of sovereignty for its member governments. The European Parliament was a paper tiger, given over to lobbying for domestic projects. Election turnouts fell steadily from sixty-two per cent in 1979 to forty-three per cent in 2009."

"Graham Watson (ALDE): Mr President, my Group considers what the House has just done to be illegal, as I explained earlier. Nonetheless, we accept the verdict of the House. As they sometimes say in my language, we look forward to seeing you in court!"

"(MEPs laugh)"

"Dr. Hans-Gert Pöttering (EPP): This concerns the whole Parliament; as you are also among its Members, you, too, would be appearing there."

"(MEPs Applaud)"

"But symbolic gestures alone cannot cement peace. This is where the European Union’s “secret weapon” comes into play: an unrivalled way of binding our interests so tightly that war becomes materially impossible. Through constant negotiations, on ever more topics, between ever more countries. It’s the golden rule of Jean Monnet: “Mieux vaut se disputer autour d’une table que sur un champ de bataille.” (“Better fight around a table than on a battle-field.”) If I had to explain it to Alfred Nobel, I would say: not just a peace congress, a perpetual peace congress! Admittedly, some aspects can be puzzling, and not only to outsiders. Ministers from landlocked countries passionately discussing fish-quota. Europarlementarians from Scandinavia debating the price of olive oil. The Union has perfected the art of compromise. No drama of victory or defeat, but ensuring all countries emerge victorious from talks. For this, boring politics is only a small price to pay. Ladies and Gentlemen, It worked. Peace is now self-evident. War has become inconceivable. Yet ‘inconceivable’ does not mean ‘impossible’. And that is why we are gathered here today. Europe must keep its promise of peace."

"We may be proud that England is the ancient country of Parliaments. With scarcely any intervening period, Parliaments have met constantly for 600 years, and there was something of a Parliament before the Conquest. England is the mother of Parliaments."

"Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament."

"The power of discretionary disqualification by one law of Parliament, and the necessity of paying every debt of the Civil List by another law of Parliament, if suffered to pass unnoticed, must establish such a fund of rewards and terrors as will make Parliament the best appendage and support of arbitrary power that ever was invented by the wit of man."

"The unique continuity of the British parliamentary system has provided an unparalleled stage for political theatre over the past two hundred years. During the two centuries which separate the age of William Pitt from the age of Gordon Brown the conduct of politics has been transformed almost beyond recognition. The electorate has grown from a few thousand well-born men to include the entire adult population - forty-five million men and women at the last election. Debate that was once conducted in elaborately rhetorical speeches, often lasting several hours, in the chamber of the House of Commons is now concentrated into thirty-second soundbites on television, replayed infinitely on the internet. Governments come and go, parties rise and decline, the issues and ideologies which form the content of political controversy change over time - liberty or order; the prerogatives of the Crown or the House of Lords; tariffs or free trade; capitalism or socialism (or the particular balance between the two); above all, peace or war and the morality and cost of foreign interventions, whether in colonial America, continental Europe or the Middle East. Yet through all these changes of style and substance, the rivalry of ambitious individuals competing for the highest offices - the same offices, for the most part - has remained a constant, and the conduct of politicians merely adapts to different contexts. There is in every age a small number of dominating personalities who embody the contending philosophies of the moment; the clashing egos and human strengths and weaknesses of these key individuals shape the arguments and determine the historical outcome. These are the leaders who define their age."

"I may confess, however, that I do not feel quite like a fish out of water in a legislative assembly where English is spoken. I am a child of the House of Commons. I was brought up in my father's house to believe in democracy. "Trust the people." That was his message. I used to see him cheered at meetings and in the streets by crowds of workingmen way back in those aristocratic Victorian days when as Disraeli said "the world was for the few, and for the very few." Therefore I have been in full harmony all my life with the tides which have flowed on both sides of the Atlantic against privilege and monopoly and I have steered confidently towards the Gettysburg ideal of government of the people, by the people, for the people."

"I have only two or three sentences to add. They will convey to the House my deep gratitude to this House of Commons, which has proved itself the strongest foundation for waging war that has ever been seen in the whole of our long history. We have all of us made our mistakes, but the strength of the Parliamentary institution has been shown to enable it at the same moment to preserve all the title-deeds of democracy while waging war in the most stern and protracted form. I wish to give my hearty thanks to men of all Parties, to everyone in every part of the House where they sit, for the way in which the liveliness of Parliamentary institutions has been maintained under the fire of the enemy, and for the way in which we have been able to persevere-and we could have persevered much longer if need had been-till all the objectives which we set before us for the procuring of the unlimited and unconditional surrender of the enemy had been achieved. I recollect well at the end of the last war, more than a quarter of a century ago, that the House, when it heard the long list of the surrender terms, the armistice terms, which had been imposed upon the Germans, did not feel inclined for debate or business, but desired to offer thanks to Almighty God, to the Great Power which seems to shape and design the fortunes of nations and the destiny of man; and I therefore beg, Sir, with your permission to move: That this House do now attend at the Church of St. Margaret, Westminster, to give humble and reverent thanks to Almighty God for our deliverance from the threat of German domination."

"Hogwarts gone wrong."

"The principle of Parliamentary sovereignty means neither more nor less than this, namely, that Parliament thus defined has, under the English constitution, the right to make or unmake any law whatever; and, further, that no person or body is recognised by the law of England as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament."

"The true hero of the ‘long’ revolution was neither William nor the Whigs; it was the institution of Parliament itself. Throughout the 17th century, Parliament never quite lost its nerve – except perhaps under Cromwell. Sitting at Westminster, it was the unchallenged forum of the nation. Through each crisis, it gave monarchy every chance to save itself. Its membership may have been undemocratic, but its dross of bishops and aristocrats was leavened by new men and new interests. Neither mobs in the street nor rebellions in the provinces ever seized the initiative. The British people were not revolutionized. The events of 1688 did not widen the parliamentary franchise or extend constituency representation. But they were a step in the long road to democracy. As such, they were, as Cromwell would have said, a cruel necessity."

"Agnes Moorhouse: Would you want to spend your life packed in with 600 other desperate, squawking, smelly creatures, unable to breath fresh air, unable to move, unable to stretch, unable to think?"

"Sir Humphrey: Certainly not, that's why I never stood for Parliament."

"Congress] is not the British Parliament, and I hope it never will become the British Parliament... Are we going to bring the president in here and have a question period like the prime minister has in Great Britain?"

"When trade is at stake, it is your last entrenchment; you must defend it, or perish...Sir, Spain knows the consequence of a war in America; whoever gains, it must prove fatal to her...is this any longer a nation? Is this any longer an English Parliament, if with more ships in your harbours than in all the navies of Europe; with above two millions of people in your American colonies, you will bear to hear of the expediency of receiving from Spain an insecure, unsatisfactory, dishonourable Convention?"

"There are many things a parliament cannot do. It cannot make itself executive, nor dispose of offices which belong to the crown. It cannot take any man's property, even that of the meanest cottager, as in the case of enclosures, without his being heard."

"The British people know that, given strong leadership, time and a little bit of hope, the forces of good ultimately rally and triumph over evil. Here among you is the cradle of self-government, the Mother of Parliaments. Here is the enduring greatness of the British contribution to mankind, the great civilized ideas: individual liberty, representative government, and the rule of law under God."

"The House of Commons is called the Lower House, in twenty Acts of Parliament; but what are twenty Acts of Parliament amongst Friends?"

"The objection to judicial interference in politics is that it undermines the democratic legitimacy of public decision making. The problem that we have here is that the government itself has sought to undermine the democratic legitimacy of public decision making by dispensing with a central feature of our constitution, namely that ministers are answerable to parliament. What the Supreme Court has done is to invent a brand new rule, that is undoubtedly controversial, a brand new constitutional rule, the effect of which is to reinstate parliament at the heart of the decision-making process. And that is not undermining democracy at all, nor is it a coup, it is simply replacing what ought to have happened by convention, by law, in circumstances where the government has tried to kick away the conventions."

"The King governs by Law. Let us look back to the evils we had, in order to prevent more. There was loan, and ship-money, and extremes begat extremes. The House would then give no money. Let the King rely upon the Parliament; we have settled the Crown and the Government. 'Tis strange that we have sat so many years, and given so much money, and are still called upon for Supply. The Lords may give Supply with their own money, but we give the peoples; we are their proxies. The King takes his measures by the Parliament, and he doubts not but that all the Commons will supply for the Government; but giving at this rate that we have done, we shall be "a branch of the revenue." They will "anticipate" us too. But, let the officers say what they will, we will not make these mismanagements the King's error. 'Tis better it should fall upon us than the King. We give public money, and must see that it goes to public use. Tell your money, fix it to public ends, and take order against occasions of this nature for the future. We cannot live at the expence of Spain, that has the Indies; or France, who has so many millions of revenue. Let us look to our Government, Fleet, and Trade. 'Tis the advice that the oldest Parliament-man among you can give you; and so, God bless you!"

"This Court is a standing Court, and the law doth adjourn it from time to time: but a Parliament is a new Court, they appear, and are always summoned by new writs."

"The Crown used to call a Parliament annually, but there was not an annual election. These words, annuo parliamento, relate to the time of their meeting, and not their election."

"To one who marvelled what should be the reason that Acts and Statutes are continually made at every Parliament, without intermission, and without end, a wise man made a good and short answer, both which are well composed in verse: "Quseritur, ut crescunt tot magna volumina legis? In promptu causa est, crescit in orbe dolus.""

"There is no providence or wisdom of man, nor of any council of men that can foresee and provide for all events and variety of cases, that will or may arise upon the making of a new law."

"The causes of the multiplicity of the English laws are, the extent of the country which they govern; the commerce and refinement of its inhabitants; but above all, the liberty and property of the subject."

"Lex Parliamenti is to be regarded as the law of the realm; but, supposing it to be a particular law, yet if a question arise determinable in the King's Bench, the King's Bench ought to determine it.— Bridgman, C.J., Binion v. Evelin (1662), Dyer, 60; Carth. 137; 1 Show. 99."

"If a man be committed by Parliament, and the Parliament is prorogued, the King's Bench will grant a habeas corpus. The common law then does not take notice of any such law of Parliament to determine inheritance originally. If there is any such, it ought either to be by act of Parliament, and there is no such act; or it ought to be by custom, and no more is there any such custom."

"This Court (Lords House of Parliament), which ought to be an example to all other Courts, will ever hold in the highest reverence the indulgent character of British justice."

"We cannot hear the integrity and wisdom of Parliament questioned in this Court."

"The House of Commons are a great branch of the Constitution, and are chose by ourselves, and are our trustees; and it cannot be supposed, nor ought to be presumed, that they will exceed their bounds, or do anything amiss . . . this is a very foreign supposition, and what ought not to be said by any Englishman."

"Every facility ought undoubtedly to be given to all persons applying to either House of Parliament or to any Court of Justice for the redress of any alleged grievance."

"The House of Commons are the representatives of the people."

"It would look very strange, when the Commons of England are so fond of their right of sending representatives to Parliament, that it should be in the power of a sheriff, or other officer, to deprive them of that right, and yet that they should have no remedy; it is a thing to be admired at by all mankind."

"I disclaim the power of legislation which is asserted to exist in this Court, and I say that, if such a right is to be created, it must be created by the Legislature properly so called."

"It is the province of the statesman and not the lawyer to discuss, and of the legislature to determine, what is the best for the public good, and to provide for it by proper enactments. It is the province of the Judge to expound the law only—the written from the statute, the unwritten or common law from the decisions of our predecessors and of our existing Courts—from the text-writers of acknowledged authority, and upon the principles to be clearly deduced from them by sound reason and just inference—not to speculate upon what is the best, in his opinion, for the advantage of the community."

"If the legislature have not gone far enough, it is for them, not for us, to remedy the defect."

"It is for the legislature to alter the law if Parliament in its wisdom thinks an alteration desirable."

"To abolish a well-established rule of law because it is a bad rule, is the business of the legislature."

"What the legislature has not expressly enacted, the Judges ought not to presume that it intended."

"The decisions of the House of Lords are binding on me and upon all the Courts except itself."

"By the Constitution of this United Kingdom, the House of Lords is the Court of Appeal in the last resort, and its decisions are authoritative and conclusive declarations of the existing state of the law, and are binding upon itself when sitting judicially, as much as upon all inferior tribunals. The observations made by members of the House, whether law members or lay members, beyond the ratio decidendi which is propounded and acted upon in giving judgment, although they may be entitled to respect, are only to be followed in as far as they may be considered agreeable to sound reason and to prior authorities. But the doctrine on which the judgment of the House is founded must be universally taken for law, and can only be altered by Act of Parliament. So it is, even where the House gives judgment in conformity to its rule of procedure, that where there is an equality of votes, semper presumitur pro negante."

"The way to secure liberty is to place it in the people's hands, that is, to give them the power at all times to defend it in the legislature and in the courts of justice."

"All things are now possible because of your being able to participate in the politics and legislature of your country."

"What I don't like is judges legislating from the bench. And as president of the United States, I will appoint justices who uphold the Constitution and who don't see themselves as a super legislature."

"In effect, to follow, not to force the public inclination; to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction, to the general sense of the community, is the true end of legislature."

"Parliament will train you to talk; and above all things to hear, with patience, unlimited quantities of foolish talk."

"That a Parliament, especially a Parliament with Newspaper Reporters firmly established in it, is an entity which by its very nature cannot do work, but can do talk only."

"I may confess, however, that I do not feel quite like a fish out of water in a legislative assembly where English is spoken. I am a child of the House of Commons. I was brought up in my father's house to believe in democracy. "Trust the people." That was his message. I used to see him cheered at meetings and in the streets by crowds of workingmen way back in those aristocratic Victorian days when as Disraeli said "the world was for the few, and for the very few." Therefore I have been in full harmony all my life with the tides which have flowed on both sides of the Atlantic against privilege and monopoly and I have steered confidently towards the Gettysburg ideal of government of the people, by the people, for the people."

"He [Oliver Cromwell] in a furious manner, bid the Speaker leave his chair; told the house "That they had sat long enough, unless they had done more good;… and that it was not fit they should sit as a parliament any longer, and desired them to go away.""

"When a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen's constitutional rights it acts lawlessly and the citizen can take matters into his own hands and proceed on the basis that such a law is no law at all."

"I come to present the strong claims of suffering humanity. I come to place before the Legislature of Massachusetts the condition of the miserable, the desolate, the outcast. I come as the advocate of helpless, forgotten, insane men and women; of beings sunk to a condition from which the unconcerned world would start with real horror."

"If the function of this Court is to be essentially no different from that of a legislature, if the considerations governing constitutional construction are to be substantially those that underlie legislation, then indeed judges should not have life."

"A plural Legislature is as necessary to good Government as a single Executive. It is not enough that your Legislature should be numerous; it should also be divided. Numbers alone are not a sufficient Barrier against the Impulses of Passion, the Combinations of Interest, the Intrigues of Faction, the Haste of Folly, or the Spirit of Encroachment. One Division should watch over and controul the other, supply its Wants, correct its Blunders, and cross its Designs, should they be criminal or erroneous. Wisdom is the specific Quality of the Legislature, grows out of the Number of the Body, and is made up of the Portions of Sense and Knowledge which each Member brings to it."

"Great constitutional provisions must be administered with caution. Some play must be allowed for the joints of the machine, and it must be remembered that legislatures are ultimate guardians of the liberties and welfare of the people in quite as great a degree as the courts."

"Now and then an innocent man is sent to the legislature."

"Woe to those who make unjust laws,"

"No one should negotiate their dreams. Dreams must be free to fly high. No government, no legislature, has a right to limit your dreams. You should never agree to surrender your dreams."

"I served with General Washington in the Legislature of Virginia... and... with Dr. Franklin in Congress. I never heard either of them speak ten minutes at a time, nor to any but the main point."

"I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation."

"I like the power given the Legislature to levy taxes, and for that reason solely approve of the greater house being chosen by the people directly."

"In fact, it is comfortable to see the standard of reason at length erected, after so many ages, during which the human mind has been held in vassalage by kings, priests, and nobles; and it is honorable for us, to have produced the first legislature who had the courage to declare, that the reason of man may be trusted with the formation of his own opinions."

"We're in the hands of the state legislature and God, but at the moment, the state legislature has more to say than God."

"The commons, faithful to their system, remained in a wise and masterly inactivity."

"In its proper meaning equality before the law means the right to participate in the making of the laws by which one is governed, a constitution which guarantees democratic rights to all sections of the population, the right to approach the court for protection or relief in the case of the violation of rights guaranteed in the constitution, and the right to take part in the administration of justice as judges, magistrates, attorneys-general, law advisers and similar positions."

"The legislature, like the executive, has ceased to be even the creature of the people: it is the creature of pressure groups, and most of them, it must be manifest, are of dubious wisdom and even more dubious honesty. Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner. The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle—a mere counter in a grotesque and knavish game…. If the right pressure could be applied to him he would be cheerfully in favor of chiropractic, astrology or cannibalism."

"All (zoos) actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent upon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a visit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, is informing, stimulating and ennobling."

"Sleep is perverse as human nature, Sleep is perverse as a legislature, Sleep is as forward as hives or goiters, And where it is least desired, it loiters"

"To speak of morals in art is to speak of legislature in sex. Art is the sex of the imagination."

"Average Americans have little or no influence over the making of U.S. government policy. ... Wealthy Americans wield a lot of influence. By investing money in politics, they can turn economic power into political power."

"I don't think you can make a lawyer honest by an act of legislature. You've got to work on his conscience. And his lack of conscience is what makes him a lawyer."

"Lawyers are apt to speak as though the legislature were omnipotent, as they do not require to go beyond its decisions. It is, of course, omnipotent in the sense that it can make whatever laws it pleases, inasmuch as a law means any rule which has been made by the legislature. But from the scientific point of view, the power of the legislature is of course strictly limited. It is limited, so to speak, both from within and from without; from within, because the legislature is the product of a certain social condition, and determined by whatever determines the society; and from without, because the power of imposing laws is dependent upon the instinct of subordination, which is itself limited. If a legislature decided that all blue-eyed babies should be murdered, the preservation of blue-eyed babies would be illegal; but legislators must go mad before they could pass such a law, and subjects be idiotic before they could submit to it."

"Bills were passed, not only for national objects but for individual cases, and laws were most numerous when the commonwealth was most corrupt."

"No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the Legislature is in session."

"Public opinion is stronger than the legislature, and nearly as strong as the ten commandments."

"It makes not the smallest difference to the motives of the thrifty and industrious part of mankind whether their fiscal oppressor be an Eastern despot, or a feudal baron, or a democratic legislature, and whether they are taxed for the benefit of a Co."

"Britain is a special country. We have so many great advantages: a parliamentary democracy where we resolve great issues about our future through peaceful debate; a great trading nation with our science and arts, our engineering and our creativity, respected the world over. And while we are not perfect, I do believe we can be a model of a multiracial, multifaith democracy where people can come and make a contribution, and rise to the very highest that their talent allows."

"Alexis de Tocqueville, one of the most thoughtful historians of [the French Revolution], notes that the French monarchy sowed the seeds of its own demise by destroying the regional parliaments, institutions that the French thought were just as ancient and just as unchangeable as the monarchy itself. After the king dispersed the parliaments both in Paris and in the regions, the French people concluded that everything, including a more democratic system, was possible. Something similar, [Abbas] Gallyamov argues, is now possible in Russia today."

"To decide once every few years which member of the ruling class is to misrepresent the people in parliament is the real essence of bourgeois parliamentarism."

"As we all know there are many forms of government and parliamentary democracy is only one of them. Parliamentary democracy, like all the other systems of government is not perfect. It has many weaknesses and how these weaknesses will undermine a parliamentary government depends much upon the practitioners. If the practitioners understand the system and its limits and are determined to derive the maximum benefit from it, then it will work and it will deliver the good governance that we all want. If not it will be no better than the systems which we reject, the feudal system, the authoritarian system, the Socialist system, the Communist system, the liberal democratic system, the Presidential system, the two-party system, the one term or two term system or whatever. All are imperfect and they can be worse than the parliamentary democratic system. On the other hand under benevolent, patriotic and skilful hands they can be better than parliamentary democracy."

"She was respected as a person who continually shared her knowledge and wisdom of the Chamorro language, culture and traditions about the people of Guam."

"Even more importantly, she helped instil in those who knew her a deep sense of honour and respect for one another."

"I’m not one you can break my spirit."

"She was a great advocate for children. She had a passion for fisheries and water species."

"Doris took her representative responsibilities seriously."

"Doris was a very hard-working legislator."

"She never compromised on principle. That’s the legacy people should care about."

"It wasn’t easy for her, but there was such an outpouring of love and respect, at least she got that."

"I always felt very much accepted,” she recalled. “And I felt privileged, because I know women in politics were not always treated that way."

"I think I was accepted because of a combination of things, I was a college graduate, I was a nurse, and I made it a point to only speak when I had something to say and to always have my facts in order."

"I am pleased I had a chance to serve, and I am very grateful to the electorate for giving that to me."

"Had Bob LaFollette become president of the United States, our history today undoubtedly would have been much better."