"Justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done."
Lord Hewart
Lord Chief Justice Hewart in R v. Sussex Justices, ex parte McCarthy (1924), quashing a conviction because the clerk to the justices was connected with the other side. The line is cited constantly in Indian cases on bias.
Quick check: Who said: "Justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done."
Mr Bumble (Charles Dickens)
John Marshall
B.R. Ambedkar
Lord Hewart
Answer: D.
"Be you never so high, the law is above you."
Lord Denning
Lord Denning, quoting the 17th-century writer Thomas Fuller, in Gouriet v. Union of Post Office Workers (1977). The Supreme Court of India has quoted it, for example in Vineet Narain (1997).
Quick check: Who said: "Be you never so high, the law is above you."
V.R. Krishna Iyer
Dick the Butcher (Shakespeare)
Benjamin Cardozo
Lord Denning
Answer: D.
"Justice delayed is justice denied."
Attributed to William Gladstone
The saying is commonly attributed to the British Prime Minister William Gladstone, though its exact origin is uncertain. Martin Luther King Jr. also used it in his Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963).
Quick check: Who said: "Justice delayed is justice denied."
Portia (Shakespeare)
Attributed to William Gladstone
H.R. Khanna
Lord Acton
Answer: B.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
Martin Luther King Jr.
From King's Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963), written while he was imprisoned for taking part in a non-violent protest.
Quick check: Who said: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
Montesquieu
D.Y. Chandrachud
Martin Luther King Jr.
Hamlet (Shakespeare)
Answer: C.
"However good a Constitution may be, it is sure to turn out bad because those who are called to work it happen to be a bad lot."
B.R. Ambedkar
From Dr Ambedkar's speech to the Constituent Assembly on 25 November 1949. He went on: however bad a Constitution may be, it may turn out to be good if those who work it happen to be a good lot.
Quick check: Who said: "However good a Constitution may be, it is sure to turn out bad because those who are called to work it happen to be a bad lot."
B.R. Ambedkar
Dipak Misra (quoting Goethe)
Charles Dickens
Kautilya
Answer: A.
57 more entries under this heading
"Constitutional morality is not a natural sentiment. It has to be cultivated." · B.R. Ambedkar
"Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy." · B.R. Ambedkar
"The basic rule may perhaps be tersely put as bail, not jail." · V.R. Krishna Iyer
"Even in the absence of Article 21, the State has got no power to deprive a person of his life or personal liberty without the authority of law." · H.R. Khanna
"Privacy is the constitutional core of human dignity." · D.Y. Chandrachud
"I am what I am, so take me as I am." · Dipak Misra (quoting Goethe)
"The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic." · Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"The right to be let alone — the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men." · Louis Brandeis
"The remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence." · Louis Brandeis
"We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final." · Robert H. Jackson
"We must never forget that it is a constitution we are expounding." · John Marshall
"The law, like the traveler, must be ready for the morrow. It must have a principle of growth." · Benjamin Cardozo
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." · Lord Acton
"There is no liberty if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers." · Montesquieu
"In the happiness of his subjects lies the king's happiness; in their welfare his welfare." · Kautilya
"Silent enim leges inter arma — in times of war, the laws fall silent." · Cicero
"Fiat justitia, ruat caelum — let justice be done, though the heavens fall." · Lord Mansfield
"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer." · William Blackstone
"If the law supposes that, the law is a ass — a idiot." · Mr Bumble (Charles Dickens)
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." · Dick the Butcher (Shakespeare)
"The quality of mercy is not strained; it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven." · Portia (Shakespeare)
"The law's delay, the insolence of office…" · Hamlet (Shakespeare)
"The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself." · Charles Dickens
"Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can." · Abraham Lincoln
"I had learnt the true practice of law… to unite parties riven asunder." · Mahatma Gandhi
"A dissent in a court of last resort is an appeal to the brooding spirit of the law, to the intelligence of a future day." · Charles Evans Hughes
"Dissent is the safety valve of democracy." · D.Y. Chandrachud
"The law is reason, free from passion." · Aristotle
"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." · Martin Luther King Jr.
"The procedure… must be right and just and fair and not arbitrary, fanciful or oppressive." · P.N. Bhagwati
"Our tradition teaches tolerance; our philosophy preaches tolerance; our Constitution practises tolerance; let us not dilute it." · O. Chinnappa Reddy
"You must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbour." · Lord Atkin
"The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience." · Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"Law must be stable and yet it cannot stand still." · Roscoe Pound
"It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one." · Voltaire
"Where law ends, tyranny begins." · William Pitt the Elder
"Justice is truth in action." · Benjamin Disraeli
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." · Tacitus
"Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice." · Martin Luther King Jr.
"The Constitution is not a mere lawyers' document, it is a vehicle of Life, and its spirit is always the spirit of Age." · Dr B.R. Ambedkar
"I measure the progress of a community by the degree of progress which women have achieved." · Dr B.R. Ambedkar
"Educate, agitate, organise." · Dr B.R. Ambedkar
"Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it." · Bal Gangadhar Tilak
"Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants." · Louis Brandeis
"We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is." · Charles Evans Hughes
"Judges are like umpires. Umpires don't make the rules; they apply them." · John Roberts
"Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it." · Learned Hand
"Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future." · Oscar Wilde
"History owes an apology to the members of this community and their families." · Justice Indu Malhotra
"The Indian Constitution is first and foremost a social document." · Granville Austin
"Hard cases make bad law." · English legal saying
"Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny." · Jawaharlal Nehru
"The common law is not a brooding omnipresence in the sky." · Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"A government of laws, and not of men." · John Adams
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." · Evelyn Beatrice Hall
"Democracy in India is only a top-dressing on an Indian soil, which is essentially undemocratic." · Dr B.R. Ambedkar
"Law is order, and good law is good order." · Aristotle
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