Ministry of Justice

“ Sometimes, indeed, the general power conferred upon a subordinate officer carried with it authority to establish such tribunals; as, for example, the power conferred upon a military commander to establish a civil government, carried authority to establish tribunals with civil as well as criminal jurisdiction in the territory governed, for the administration of justice. ”

“ The public attorneys and the State legal advisors shall be under the National Minister of Justice to advise the State, represent it in public prosecution, litigation and adjudication, and conduct pre-trial proceedings. They shall recommend law reform, strive to protect public and private rights, advise on legal matters and render legal aid. ”

“ Let us do justice to them; let us place ourselves in their position and then assess the value of their sacrifice. The Rulers have now discharged their part of the obligations by transferring all ruling powers and by agreeing to the integration of the States. The main part of our obligation under these Agreements, is to ensure that the gurantees given by us in respect of privy purse are fully implemented. ”

“ The administration of justice throughout the Union is vested in a minister of state who has all the powers of the attorney-generals of the several colonies at the time of the Union, save that power as to the prosecution of crimes is vested in each province in an official appointed by the governor-general in council and styled the attorney-general of the province. ”

“ An organic constitutional law shall determine the organization and competences of the Public Ministry, shall determine the qualifications and requirements that the public prosecutors must have and meet for their appointment and the grounds for the removal of the adjunct prosecutors, insofar as they are not contemplated in the Constitution. ”

“ The general political satisfaction of the people and the concept of a national community of interest, which is growing more and more, will already by themselves relieve the courts of much work.
2. Much work is done which is only in a general way connected with the administration of justice and which is more of an administrative than of a judicial nature. This work can well be done and without harm by other administrative departments. I mean herewith a large part of the work done by voluntary jurisdiction, such as recording of deeds and general registry work. ”

“ Nothing better can come out of this meeting of law enforcement officers than a rededication to the spirit of fair play and decency that should animate the federal prosecutor. Your positions are of such independence and importance that while you are being diligent, strict, and vigorous in law enforcement you can also afford to be just. Although the government technically loses its case, it has really won if justice has been done. The lawyer in public office is justified in seeking to leave behind him a good record. ”

“ It must stand in need of no intermediate legislations; but must itself be empowered to employ the arm of the ordinary magistrate to execute its own resolutions. The majesty of the National authority must be manifested through the medium of the Courts of Justice. ”

“ The administration of justice we must make impartial, swift, thorough, unsparing. Law enforcement agencies we should reform, reorganize, and modernize -- to raise their level of competence and their standard of dedication to their duties. ”

“ To reestablish the vigor and effectiveness of law enforcement we must critically consider the entire Federal machinery of justice, the redistribution of its functions, the simplification of its procedure, the provision of additional special tribunals, the better selection of juries, and the more effective organization of our agencies of investigation and prosecution that justice may be sure and that it may be swift. ”

“ Nearly all the departments now recognize the efficiency of the service and call upon the bureau at any time for a man. The Department of Justice has used a number of the operators in the last few years. In the course of time this will become so general that this government will probably build up a great criminal bureau, one that will supply officers for investigation of any crime. ”

“ The opinion has also been expressed that it is essential in any changes that may be made to retain the occasional administration by judges of the high court of criminal jurisdiction, both in populous centres and in remote places. It promotes a belief in the importance and dignity of justice and the care to be given to all matters affecting a citizen’s life, liberty or character. ”

“ In the same case the Chief Justice gives is this clear definition of a ministerial duty in the relation in which we have been considering it: 'A ministerial duty, the performance of which may in proper cases be required of the head of a department by judicial process, is one in respect to which nothing is left to discretion. It is a simple, definite duty, arising under circumstances admitted or proved to exist and imposed by law.'
The action of the officers of the land department, with which we are asked to interfere in this case, is clearly not of this character. ”

“ The sole issue is whether comity calls for review here before a lower federal court may be asked to intervene in state matters. We answer in the affirmative. Such a rule accords with our form of government. Since the states have the major responsibility for the maintenance of law and order within their borders, the dignity and importance of their role as guardians of the administration of criminal justice merits review of their acts by this Court before a prisoner, as a matter of routine, may seek release from state process in the district courts of the United States. ”

“ The Department of Justice is one of the great executive departments established by congressional enactment, and has charge, among other things, of the initiation and prosecution of all suits, civil and criminal, which may be brought in the right and name of the United States to compel obedience or punish disobedience to its laws, to recover property obtained from it by unlawful or fraudulent means, or to safeguard its rights in other respects, and also of the assertion and protection of its interests, when it or its officers are sued by others. ”

“ In a system of representative government there must be a legislative department composed of men elected to make the laws, an executive department having control of troops and police officers whose business it is to enforce the laws, and a judicial department made up of courts which are meant to secure justice for all persons under the laws. ”

“ Ministers must uphold the political impartiality of the Civil Service, and not ask civil servants to act in any way which would conflict with the Civil Service Code and the requirements of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010. See Chapter Seven for more on civil servants. The judiciary 16. The judiciary interprets and applies the law in its decisions. It is a long-established constitutional principle that the judiciary is independent of both the government of the day and Parliament so as to ensure the even-handed administration of justice. ”

“ While the public tribunals are filled with Judges, the purity of whose conduct adds lustre to their own and the national character, why should not every subordinate part of the Criminal Jurisprudence of the Country be so organized, as to co-operate, in the greatest possible degree, with the efforts of those higher orders of the Magistracy in accomplishing the purposes of substantial justice? ”

“ It may be that the Attorney-General was misled, and he really supposed that all he heard was true. My objection to the administration of the Department of Justice is, that a resort was had to spies and detectives. The battle was not fought in the open field. Influences were brought to bear. Nearly all departments of the Government were enlisted. Everything was done to create a public opinion in favor of the prosecution. Everything was done that the cases might be decided on prejudice instead of upon facts. ”

“ Except insofar as penal remedies may be provided by Congress under the explicit authority to 'make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution' the other powers granted by Art. I, § 8, the bulk of authority to legislate on what may be compendiously described as criminal justice, which in other nations belongs to the central government, is under our system the responsibility of the individual States. ”

“ It is the intention of the Constitution that each of the great co-ordinate departments of the government-the Legislative, the Executive, and the Judicial-shall be, in its sphere, independent of the others. ”

“ Justice shall be administered gratuitously throughout the entire territory of the Republic.{229}
Art. 85. The courts shall take cognizance of all cases, whether civil, criminal, or between the Government and private parties.
Art. 86. No judicial commissions or extraordinary tribunals, no matter under what name, shall ever be created. ”

“ Art. 68. Ministers may not accept a salaried office other than their own.
Art. 69. The National Consultative Assembly or the Senate shall declare the delinquencies of Ministers in the presence of the Court of Cassation, and the said Court, all the members of the tribunals comprised in it being present, will pronounce judgement, save in cases when the accusation and prosecution refer to the Minister in his private capacity, and are outside the scope of the functions of government entrusted to him in his ministerial capacity. ”

“ I feel well assured that it will be better to trust the rights, privileges, and immunities of the citizen to tribunals thus established, and presided over by competent and impartial judges, bound by fixed rules of law and evidence, and where the right of trial by jury is guaranteed and secured, than to the caprice or judgment of an officer of the Bureau, who it is possible may be entirely ignorant of the principles that underlie the just administration of the law. ”

“ The National Minister of Justice is the chief legal advisor of the National Government, he/she shall be the prosecuting authority at the national level and at the northern states and may perform any such other functions of legal character as may be prescribed by law.
(3) The State legal advisors shall perform their duties faithfully and impartially according to this Constitution and the law.
(4) Functions, immunities, emoluments, terms and conditions of service of the State legal advisors shall be prescribed by law. ”

“ One cannot but be struck, in this slight enumeration, with the utter unfitness of the common tribunals of justice to take cognizance of such offences; and with the entire propriety of confiding the jurisdiction over them to a tribunal capable of understanding, and reforming, and scrutinizing the polity of the state, [166] and of sufficient dignity to maintain the independence and reputation of worthy public officers. ”

“ Should a public prosecutor find that the institution of a criminal case would not be in the interest of the public or would have an effect on the safety or security of the Nation or on an important benefit of the Country, he shall submit the matter to the Attorney General, and the Attorney General shall have the power to order that the institution of the case be withheld. ”

“ The kingdom shall remain divided, as heretofore, into governments, under the usual provincial administrations. No governor-general shall, from this time, be appointed within the kingdom. Article 47. The courts of justice, superior as well as inferior, shall administer justice according to the laws and statutes of the realm. The provincial governors, and all other public functionaries, shall exercise the offices entrusted to them according to existing regulations; they shall obey the orders of the king, and be responsible to him if any act is done contrary to law. ”

“ If passing from general reasoning, an appeal is made to the lessons of experience, there is every thing to convince us, that the judicial department is safe to a republic, with the tenure of office during good behaviour ”

“ Persecuted innocence has no support except you. Supreme chief of the French magistrature, it is you alone that holds the power to execute the laws and to dismiss the arbitrary stench that undermines and dilutes them. ”

“ The Senators, the Deputies, the members of the Supreme Court of Justice, and the Secretaries of the Cabinet are responsible for the common crimes which they may commit during their terms of office, and for the crimes, misdemeanors, and negligence into which they may fall in the performance of the duties of said office. The Governors of the States are likewise responsible for the infraction of the Constitution and Federal laws. The President of the Republic is also responsible ”

“ Thus the judiciary, in governments whose adjudications proceed upon the course of the common law, becomes not merely the arbitrator in a particular controversy, but the department through which the government interprets the rule of action prescribed by the legislature, and by which all its citizens are to be guided. This office of the judicial department had long been known in all the States of the Union at the time of the formation of the national Constitution. ”

“ A commission, not to sit in another country, and to try offences not provided for in any law of the United States, civil or military, then in force, but in their own country, and in a part of it where there are laws providing for their trial and punishment, and civil courts clothed with ample powers for both, and in the daily and undisturbed exercise of their jurisdiction. ”

“ It may be said, in general, that the tendency towards keeping the judiciary apart from any active connection with the executive department has steadily increased since the first quarter of the nineteenth century. ”