judges-from-england

"Ability isn't the most important thing. In most cases the facts aren't really very difficult to get at: no, the most important thing for a judge is—curiously enough—judgment. It’s not so very different from the qualities of a successful businessman or civil servant. I’m always struck by how alike men in high positions seem to be. It’s rather like seeing a lot of different parts of the stage, and finding that they’re all Gerald du Maurier in the end."

"The judges of England have rarely been original thinkers or great jurists. Many have been craftsmen rather than creators. They have needed the stuff of morals to be supplied to them so that out of it they could fashion the law."

"Each jury is a little parliament. The jury sense is the parliamentary sense. I cannot see the one dying and the other surviving. The first object of any tyrant * * * would be to make Parliament utterly subservient to his will; and next to overthrow or diminish trial by jury, for no tyrant could afford to leave a subject’s freedom in the hands of 12 of his countrymen. So that trial by jury is more than an instrument of justice and more than one wheel of the constitution; it is the lamp that shows that freedom lives."

"I think...that it is not possible to set theoretical limits to the power of the State to legislate against immorality. It is not possible to settle in advance exceptions to the general rule or to define inflexibly areas of morality into which the law is in no circumstances to be allowed to enter. Society is entitled by means of its laws to protect itself from dangers, whether from within or without. Here again I think that the political parallel is legitimate. The law of treason is directed against aiding the king's enemies and against sedition from within. The justification for this is that established government is necessary for the existence of society and therefore its safety against violent overthrow must be secured. But an established morality is as necessary as good government to the welfare of society. Societies disintegrate from within more frequently than they are broken up by external pressures. There is disintegration when no common morality is observed and history shows that the loosening of moral bonds is often the first stage of disintegration, so that society is justified in taking the same steps to preserve its moral code as it does to preserve its government... the suppression of vice is as much the law's business as the suppression of subversive activities."

"This is an exceptional case. You have shown yourself to be a good wife, a good mother and a good housewife and I cannot think of anything more one could say about any woman."

"STRANGER, Ere thou pass, contemplate this cannon, Nor regardless be told That near its base lies deposited the dust Of John Bradshaw; Who, nobly superior to selfish regards, Despising alike the pageantry of courtly splendor, The blast of calumny, And the terrors of royal vengeance, Presided in the illustrious band of Heroes and Patriots, Who fairly and openly adjudged CHARLES STUARD Tyrant of England To a public and exemplary death; Thereby presenting to the amazed world, And transmitting down through applauding ages, The most glorious example Of unshaken virtue, Love of Freedom, And impartial justice, Ever exhibited on the blood-stained theatre Of human actions. Oh, Reader, Pass not on, till thou haft blest his memory! And never, never forget, That REBELLION TO TYRANTS IS OBEDIENCE TO GOD."

"The Dominion of the Sea, as it is an ancient and undoubted right of the Crown of England, so it is the best security of the Land; for it is Impregnable, so long as the Sea is well-guarded: therefore out of all question, it is a thing of absolute necessity, that the guard of the Sea be exactly looked unto; and those Subjects, whose minds are most fixed upon the Honour of the King and Country, will with no patience endure to think of it; that this Dominion of the Sea, which is so great an Honour, should be either lost or diminished: besides, for safeties fake, the Dominion of the Sea is to be kept, and the Sea guarded. The Wooden-Walls are the best Walls of this Kingdom; and if the Riches and Wealth of the Kingdom be respected, for that cause the Dominion of the Sea ought to be respected; for else what would become of our Wool, Lead and the like, the prices whereof would fall to nothing if others should be Masters of the Sea."

"All fiefs were originally masculine, and women were excluded from the succession of them because they cannot keep secrets."

"A woman's notes will not signify much truly, no more than her tongue."

"The people as a source of sovereign power are in truth only occasional partners in the constitutional minuet danced for most of the time by Parliament and the political party in power."

"A government above the law is a menace to be defeated."

"The influence of the Crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished."

"Comparative necessairement suppose un positive, et que riens est un mere privative."

"Le impress de authority done par le Roy doit silencer inquiry al discretion dun Judge *; le Roy sole est le proper Judge del ability de ses Ministers et les Chef Justices sont deins le Statute de Scand."

"Jeo concede que est le opinion Seigniour Coke, mes salva reverentia al ey grand sage et pere del ley."

"Pur dishonest Judgm't Judges povent estre punv. Mirror de Justices report que 44 fueront pendus pur cest cause."

"La ley est un egal dispenser de Justice, et ne relinque aucun sans remedy sur son droit, sans son propre laches."

"Sans fact conus, est impossible de seier la ley sur cest fact."

"It is the Court, not the jury, who are to determine the law."

"The Court will not keep back their opinion without having sufficient ground for doubting, and a necessity of taking time to satisfy their doubts: on the other hand, they will not give their opinions over-hastily and prematurely, merely to gratify the humours or passions of mankind."

"The Court of Chancery never decrees that shall be evidence, which in its nature is not evidence."

"One would wonder, when a word was in use two hundred years ago, that there should remain now any doubt what it is."

"I should be as unwilling as any man to concur in anything injurious to the rights of the subject. The Habeas Corpus is a very wise and beneficial statute: and the Judges have always been disposed to put such a construction upon it as will favour the real liberty of the subject. But we must be careful that those Acts which have been made for the benefit of the subject are not turned into engines of oppression: nor must we, under the idea of promoting general liberty, withhold that degree of favour from individuals which is consistent with the security of the public."

"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."

"Those who make the attack ought to be very well prepared to support it."

"If it were a doubtful point how the statute should be construed, I must consider myself as bound by the construction it has already received in two Courts in Westminster Hall."

"In this case the plaintiff does not come into Court with clean hands; he alleges his own turpitude, and is indictable for his fraud."

"Whatever doubts I had, I submit to the authority of the other Judges."

"I am bound by my oath to abide by the law, and I cannot suffer anybody to derogate from it."

"The best way in which a jury can execute their duty is to give their verdict according to the evidence before them."

"Legal coercion is a course which the law allows."

"It is not merely of some importance but is of fundamental importance that justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done"

"Did he not appear to you to be a public man of no little courage, no little candour and no little ability."

"Tradition… makes the earliest connexion of the Veda to be with the eastern region and not with the Punjab."

"[The fact that there are Indo-European languages outside India: Pargiter clearly attributes the presence of these languages to the] Aila outflow of the Druhyus through the northwest into the countries beyond where they founded various kingdoms."

"There is nothing in them (Puranic accounts), as far as I am aware, really inconsistent with the most ancient book we possess, namely, the Rigveda, and they throw much light thereon, and on all problems concerning ancient India."

"The bulk of the Rigveda was composed in the great development of Brahmanism that arose under the succesors of king Bharata who reigned in the upper Ganges-Jumna doab and plain;"

"There was an outflow of people from India before the fifteenth century BC."

""If the Aryans had entered India from the north-west, and had advanced eastward through the Punjab only as far as the Saraswati or Jumna when the Rigvedic hymns were composed, it is very surprising that the hymn arranges the rivers, not according to their progress, but reversaly from the Ganges which they had hardly reached. " Imam me gange yamune sarasvati sutudri stomam sacata parusnaya asiknya marudvrdhe vitastayarjikiye srnuhya susomaya " (x 75.05) O Ganga, Yamuna, Sarasvati, Sutudri (Sutlej), Parushini (Ravi), hear my praise! Listen to my call, Asikni (Chenab), Marudvridha (Maruvardhvan), Vitasta (Jhelum) with Arjikiya, Sushoma (Sohan)."

"The river constituted the boundary between the Panjab and the Ganges-Jumna basin."

"The Aryans began at Allahabad, conquered and spread out northwest, west and south, and had by YayAti’s time occupied precisely the region known as MadhyadeSa… They expanded afterwards into the Punjab and East Afghanistan, into West India and the northwest Dekhan…"

"The arguments used to prove the advance of the Aryans from Afghanistan into the Punjab might simply be reversed."

"Indian tradition knows nothing whatever of the Aryans' invasion of India through the north-west....All this copious tradition was falsely fabricated, and the truth has been absolutely lost, if the current theory is right; is that probable? If all this tradition is false, why, how, and in whose interests was it all fabricated.?"

"Indian tradition knows nothing of any Aila or Aryan invasion of India from Afghanistan, nor of any gradual advance from thence eastwards."

"Indian tradition distinctly asserts that there was an Aila outflow of the Druhyus through the northwest into the countries beyond where they founded various kingdoms."

"[Mandhātā pushed past] "the prostrate Paurava realm, and pushing beyond them westwards, he had a long contest with and conquered the Druhyu king who appears to have been then on the confines of the Panjab, so that the next Druhyu king Gandhāra retired to the northwest and gave his name to the Gandhāra country" (PARGITER 1962:262)."

""The Druhyus occupied the Punjab, and Mandhātṛ of Ayodhya had a long war with the Druhyu king Aruddha or Aṅgāra and killed him" (PARGITER 1962:167)."

"The Iranians may have been an offshoot from India."

"There is a strong presumption in favor of (Indian) tradition; if anyone contests tradition, the burden lies on him to show that it is wrong."

"The next Druhyu king Gandhāra retired to the northwest and gave his name to the Gandhāra country."