Court life

“ It is enough that it is reasonable under the circumstances-such as is usual in similar cases, and has been found by long experience to be sufficient to answer the end in view-the safety of life and property. ”

“ The price of error may be so heavy as to erect an unfair barrier against the endeavor of an honest litigant to obtain the judgment of a court. In that event, the Constitution intervenes and keeps the courtroom open. ”

“ No doubt a court may, notwithstanding the rule, in its discretion, receive prayers for instructions even after the general charge has been given to the jury, but neither party can claim as a right a disregard of the ordinary rules of practice in the court. ”

“ He must have the privilege of bringing in witnesses to tell the truth about the charges that may be made. There must be a decision by the court after a speedy public trial. In all the States of this country any one is entitled to such a trial, and he is also, in case of defeat, entitled to appeal and present his case to a different and a higher court. These courts are the courts of the people, selected by the people, and neither government nor individuals have any right to take away anyone's life, liberty, or property unless the people by and through their courts shall so find and do. ”

“ The learning and research of counsel have produced no instance in this country in which such an order, made in the exercise of the discretionary power of the court, unrestricted by statute, has been set aside on bill of exceptions or writ of error. ”

“ The burning of the house of the offender is not a permissible punishment for arson. The rape of the offender is not a permissible punishment of a rapist. Why should murder be a permissible punishment for murder? Indeed, there are good reasons why it should not, because its execution might desensitize respect for life per se. More crucially, within the context of the South African Constitution, it appears to be at variance with its basic premise and ethos which I analysed earlier in this judgment. ”

“ The US Supreme Court has been obliged to follow the route it did because, so it seems to me, their Constitution postulates (by implication) that it is possible to devise due process mechanisms which can deal with the arbitrary and unequal features of death sentence imposition. We are not so constrained. Our right to life is not qualified in the way it is qualified in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the US Constitution. We are not constitutionally constrained to accept the arbitrary consequences of the imposition of the death penalty. ”

“ Every human being shall be entitled to respect for his life and the integrity of the person. No one may be arbitrarily deprived of this right.'
Article 2 (1) of the European Convention on Human Rights provides that 'Everyone's right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law.' But in 1983 a protocol to the Convention was adopted which provided that capital punishment should be abolished. ”

“ For some, the fact that we cold-bloodedly kill our own kind, taints the whole of our society and makes us all accomplices to the premeditated and solemn extinction of human life. For others, on the contrary, the disgrace is that we place a higher value on the life and dignity of the killer than on that of the victim. A third group prefer a purely pragmatic approach which emphasises not the moral issues, but the inordinate stress that capital punishment puts on the judicial process and, ultimately, on the Presidency, as well as the morbid passions it arouses in the public ”

“ The death penalty is a punishment which involves so much pain and suffering that civilised society ought not to tolerate it even in spite of the present high rate of crime. And society ought to tolerate the death penalty even less when considering that it has not been proved that it has any greater deterrent effect on would-be murderers than life imprisonment. ”

“ This obligation, in turn, requires that any enactment of Parliament should be judged by standards laid down by the Constitution. The judiciary has the duty of implementing the constitutional safeguards that protect individual rights. When the State seeks to take away the individual fundamental right to life, the safeguards of the Constitution should be examined with special diligence. When it appears that an act of Parliament conflicts with the provisions of the Constitution, we have no choice but to enforce the paramount commands of the Constitution. ”

“ Instead of establishing a constitutional framework within which the State may deprive citizens of their lives, as it could have done, our Constitution commits the State to affirming and protecting life. Because section 33 is not concerned with creating circumstances in which the right of any person may be disregarded altogether, nor with establishing exceptions which qualify the nature of the right itself, or exclude its operation, it cannot be invoked as an authorization for capital punishment. ”

“ The State should not make itself guilty of conduct which violates that which it is in the community's interests to nurture. The Constitution, in deference to our humanity and sense of dignity, does not allow us to kill in cold blood in order to deter others from killing. Nor does it allow us to kill criminals simply to get even with them." [11] We are not to stoop to the level of the criminal.
[234] ⁠It follows from the remarks above that as a punishment the death penalty is a violation of the right to life. It is cruel, inhuman and degrading. It is also a severe affront to human dignity. ”

“ A person does not become "fair game" to be killed at the behest of the State, because he has killed.
[230] ⁠The protection afforded by the Constitution is applicable to every person. That includes the weak, the poor and the vulnerable. It includes others as well who might appear not to need special protection; it includes criminals and all those who have placed themselves on the wrong side of the law. The Constitution guarantees them their right, as persons, to life, to dignity and to protection against torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment. ”

“ This reason, in many cases, if not in all, would apply but awkwardly to jurisdiction,-a duty, and oftentimes an onerous, sometimes a dangerous, duty, which, instead of courting, we gladly escape from,-and not, like property, an enjoyment, a benefit, indeed, the greatest of worldly blessings in the opinion of the mass of mankind. ”

“ In my view, the values expressed by section 9 are conclusive of the matter. Everyone, including the most abominable of human beings, has the right to life, and capital punishment is therefore unconstitutional. ”

“ This attribute of courts is essential to preserve their authority and to prevent the administration of justice from falling into disrepute. Such summary conviction and punishment accords due process of law. ”

“ On this basis the infliction of the death penalty must conflict with section 33 (1) (b) because in destroying life it must negate the essence of the right to life. I do not find this so-called subjective interpretation convincing. It cannot accommodate the many State measures which must be necessary and justifiable in any society, such as long-term imprisonment for serious crimes. ”

“ In the constitution of that state of 1776, it was declared that 'in all controversies at law, respecting property, the ancient mode of trial by jury is one of the best securities of the rights of the people, and ought to remain sacred and inviolable.' 2 Charters and Constitutions, 1410. ”

“ Where our convictions are clear, and differ from those of the learned judges below, we may not abdicate the performance of the duty which the law imposes upon us by declining to give our own judicial effect. ”

“ When it comes to execution, however, there is no scope for proportionality, while the only relevant threshold is, tragically, that to eternity.
[353] ⁠Even if one applies an objective approach in relation to the enjoyment of the right to life, namely, that the State is under a duty to create conditions to enable all persons to enjoy the right, in my view this cannot mean that the State's function can be extended to encompass complete, intentional and avoidable obliteration of any person's subjective right. ”

“ A level of arbitrariness and the possibilities of mistake that might be inescapable and therefore tolerable in relation to other forms of punishment, burst the parameters of constitutionality when they impact on the deliberate taking of life. ”

“ There is no doubt that these campaigns to prevent the execution of amongst others, the 'Sharpeville Six' and the 'Upington 26' were partly responsible for the government's decision in 1990 to suspend the implementation of sentences of death.
[334] ⁠The purpose of the death penalty is to kill convicted criminals. Its very purpose lies in the deprivation of existence. Its inevitable result is the denial of human life. It is hard to see how this methodical and deliberate destruction of life by the government can be anything other than a breach of the right to life. ”

“ Venerable attorneys, I have often seen at assize courts, pushing and bustling, with their white heads bobbing about in the crowd, just as though the life of a prisoner, indicted upon a capital charge, depended upon their instantly having a word or two with a leading counsel they were instructing for the defence: it being a well-known fact, that, for half a life-time, they had ceased actively to practise. ”

“ At law the jury's verdict settles issues of fact and defines rights, subject only to questions of law. In administrative procedure, the findings of the administrative body may likewise be made conclusive of fact issues, and equally define rights and duties subject only to questions of law. ”

“ Anybody interested in the person, like a father, brother, next friend, or anybody else, can apply at any time they see fit, to a Judge of the Supreme Court, on a habeas corpus, and have the question of the sanity of the person tested. ”

“ A defeated litigant comes out of the best court in the most civilized state, angry, denouncing injustice and violation of rights, and declaiming solemn "doctrines" of justice and liberty and, above all, of "rights." ”

“ The people in both reserved in a manner the office of judgment to themselves, and brought the decision of civil rights, or of criminal questions, to the tribunal of peers, who, in judging of their fellow citizens, prescribed a condition of life for themselves. ”

“ From the necessity of the case the law imposes upon the master the duty, and clothes him with the power, to judge and determine, at the time, whether the circumstances of danger in such a case are or are not so great and pressing as to render a sacrifice of a portion of the associated interests indispensable for the common safety of the remainder. ”

“ What court, what tribunal of last resort, is to define this God, and who is to make known his will? In his presence, laws passed by men will be of no value. The decisions of courts will be as nothing. ”

“ Leaving the body under the earth, accompany the soul passing to a new and unknown region, where she expecteth the sentence of the eternal judge. Imagine with thyself that thou art present at this tribunal, and the whole court of heaven, waiting with deep silence, and great attention, the event and sentence of this judgment, here must be given a strict account of all receivings and disbursements. ”

“ The fourteenth section of the Judiciary Act granted to all the courts power to issue writs of scire facias, habeas corpus, and all other writs necessary for the exercise of their respective jurisdictions, and agreeable to the principles and usages of law ”

“ But this is a Way of acting, however worthy be the Motive, which is sometimes more justifiable to a Man's own Conscience, than it would be in the Court of King's Bench, which requires the Magistrate to execute the Laws entrusted to his Care, and in the Manner which those Laws prescribe. ”

“ This is a wonderful illustration of the paternal care which is manifested for those who may be unfortunate, and this is all because under our Constitution, liberty is a sacred thing, and it shall not be taken away except in punishment for a crime which has been proven in open court in a public trial before a jury, where the party has been confronted with the witnesses against him, where he has had a chance to furnish witnesses in his behalf and the aid of counsel in his trial. ”

“ The identity required is to be in 'the practice, pleadings, and forms and modes of proceeding.' The personal conduct and administration of the judge in the discharge of his separate functions is, in our judgment, neither practice, pleading, nor a form nor mode of proceeding within the meaning of those terms as found in the context. ”

“ When, therefore, in an ordinary trial in an action at law we speak of the common law we refer to the law of the state as it has been adopted by statute or recognized by the courts as the foundation of legal rights. It is in regard to decisions made by the state courts in reference to this law, and defining what is the law of the state as modified by the opinions of its own courts, by the statutes of the state, and the customs and habits of the people, that the trouble arises. ”

“ We will only add, that practical illustrations of this application of the rule are witnessed daily in the administration of justice in criminal cases, and are too familiar to every lawyer to require a more particular reference. ”

“ All persons, as well of high as of low estate, shall receive justice in the King's Court; and none shall take any such revenge or distress by his own authority, without award of our court, although he is damaged or injured, whereby he would have amends of his neighbor either higher or lower. ”

“ Such a person has exhibited a trait of character which, without the aid of the law in question, authorizes the court to declare him unfit to practise before it, and to strike his name from the roll of its attorneys if it be found there. ”