Legal Quotes - page 29
We have the heaviest concentration of lawyers on Earth -- one for every five-hundred Americans; three times as many as are in England, four times as many as are in West Germany, twenty-one times as many as there are in Japan. We have more litigation, but I am not sure that we have more justice. No resources of talent and training in our own society, even including the medical care, is more wastefully or unfairly distributed than legal skills. Ninety percent of our lawyers serve 10 percent of our people. We are over-lawyered and under-represented.
Jimmy Carter
In its Morgentaler decision of January 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the centrepiece of Canada's abortion law, section 251 of the Criminal Code. The court held that it conflicted with section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees the 'security of the person'. This ruling radically changed the legal status quo; it was as if Parliament had repealed that section of the Criminal Code without passing a replacement amendment.
Thomas Flanagan (political scientist)
According to the teaching of the Church, men and women with homosexual tendencies 'must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided'. They are called, like other Christians, to live the virtue of chastity. The homosexual inclination is however 'objectively disordered' and homosexual practices are 'sins gravely contrary to chastity'.In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application. In this area, everyone can exercise the right to conscientious objection.
Pope Benedict XVI
Communist parties are both legal and illegal, and the illegal structure governs the legal. But legality is an enormous aid to the illegal conspiracy. It prevents forthright action against the chief criminals; it leads to roundabout persecution; it enables the Communist to deceive simple, generous-hearted, and gullible citizens, and it leads to dubiously legal actions from the government itself. The present half-legal, half-persecuted position of the Party and its members is not justice. It operates to eliminate one evil with another, both evils containing dangers to the Constitutional order.
Dorothy Thompson
I define anarchist society as one where there is no legal possibility for coercive aggression against the person or property of any individual. Anarchists oppose the State because it has its very being in such aggression, namely, the expropriation of private property through taxation, the coercive exclusion of other providers of defense service from its territory, and all of the other depredations and coercions that are built upon these twin foci of invasions of individual rights.
Murray Rothbard
A parent does not have the right to aggress against his children, but also that the parent should not have a legal obligation to feed, clothe, or educate his children, since such obligations would entail positive acts coerced upon the parent and depriving the parent of his rights. The parent therefore may not murder or mutilate his child, and the law properly outlaws a parent from doing so. But the parent should have the legal right not to feed the child, i. e., to allow it to die. The law, therefore, may not properly compel the parent to feed a child or to keep it alive. (Again, whether or not a parent has a moral rather than a legally enforceable obligation to keep his child alive is a completely separate question.) This rule allows us to solve such vexing questions as: should a parent have the right to allow a deformed baby to die (e. g., by not feeding it)? The answer is of course yes, following a fortiori from the larger right to allow any baby, whether deformed or not, to die.
Murray Rothbard
The fact is, growing hemp for industrial purposes would make it a very useful plant. It can be a fiber for clothing, a source of paper, even an alternative fuel. Canada is already using hemp this way. I simply don't see that cannabis grows wild on earth just so humans can eradicate it.
Of course, the work of eradicating marijuana creates jobs within law enforcement. If we made it legal, and taxed it like we do tobacco and alcohol, maybe those law enforcement people could start paying more attention to murders and terrorism. I also think it's time for people to rise up against the prescription drug industry, the biggest opponent of legalization. You have to remember that they don't want anything out there that they can't make a profit from. Marijuana is a weed, and that means you can grow it, essentially free. This doesn't sit well with the pharmaceutical industry, and I think our Food and Drug Administration is nothing but a puppet whose strings the industry pulls.
Jesse Ventura
I believe leadership everywhere must continuously work to ensure that pluralism, and all its benefits, become top global priorities. In this effort, civil society has a vital role. By its very nature, civil society is pluralist because it seeks to speak for the multiple interests not represented by the state. I refer, for example, to organisations which ensure best practices such as legal societies and associations of accountants, doctors and engineers. The meritocracy they represent is the very foundation of pluralism. And meritocracy is one of the principles of democracy itself.
Aga Khan IV
This privileged position (lawyer) obliges you to remember that most of the population cannot afford your services or fees. As a consequence they are denied access to justice. It therefore behoves the legal profession to consider practical ways of alleviating this unacceptable state of affairs.
Joni Madraiwiwi
The issue which concern all of us as citizens of this country, irrespective of our political beliefs and ethnicity, is this: if we are to forbear all legal proceedings against the perpetrators of the events of 19 May 2000 what does that say about our sense of right and wrong? What does it say to those that were directly and indirectly harmed by their actions? Without an accounting, we encourage repetition of this conduct, make light of the pain and suffering people endured and suggest to the impressionable that such conduct is appropriate.
Joni Madraiwiwi
Democracy makes Rumanian citizens out of millions of Jews by making them the Rumanians' equals. By giving them the same legal rights. Equality? What for? We have been here for thousands of years. Plow and weapon in hand. With our labors and blood. Why equality with those who have been here for only one hundred, ten, or even five years? Let's look at the past: We created this state. Let's look at the future: We Rumanians are fully responsible for Greater Rumania. They have nothing to do with it. What could be the responsibility of Jews, in the history books, for the disappearance of the Rumanian state? Thus: no equality in labor, sacrifice, and struggle for the creation of the state and no equal responsibility for its future. Equality? According to an old maxim: Equality is to treat unequally the unequal. What are the reasons for the Jews' demanding equal treatment, equal political rights with the Rumanians?
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu
Until that point (where national unity prevails) is reached, the journey to it must be seen and appreciated for what it is: in a society such as ours where divisions exist both inter-ethnically and within communities the process of nation building of which the rule of law is an integral part requires a deft balancing of priorities in a fair and inclusive manner. This allows everyone to be a part of the challenges that we need to face together. The path to this point has been tortuous and at times strained because we have invariably compromised some of the detail of the rule of law by honouring the letter if not the spirit of the decisions handed down by the courts. However, it has also been a critical learning experience where we have had to combine political reality with legal principle. The result is an imperfect one but the rule of law is stronger for having weathered these sustained assaults on it.
Joni Madraiwiwi
