Summary justice

“ In the formation of the law, regard should be often had to the convenience, to the faculties, to the interests, and to the habits of the citizens, sometimes even to their prejudices, but in the interpretation of it, nothing but justice should be regarded. ”

“ Justice is represented as blind, bearing in one hand a sword to punish, and in the other scales in which she weighs accusation and defence. This is not the image of Justice. This is the image of Law, or, rather, of the man who condemns or acquits according to his conscience. ”

“ I believe in law and order; but I believe, as a condition precedent, that law and order should be predicated upon right and justice, pure and simple. Law is, intrinsically, a written expression of justice; if, on the contrary, it becomes instead written injustice, men are not, strictly speaking, bound to yield it obedience. ”

“ He learned to pore over law papers, to seek out flaws and errors, to look for any thing that might convey a double meaning, to track the tortuous and narrow paths by which that power which bears the name of Justice reaches the clear light of truth, or falls into the thorny deep of error. ”

“ I would help my fellow-men to justice; but must I spend my life, and dry up and impoverish my very soul, in regulating his disputes according to rules that are something very different from justice?—often mere logical deductions from certain legal abstractions, in which all moral right and wrong,—all substantial justice between man and man, is utterly forgotten? ”

“ It has always been the praise of this house to pay an equal regard to justice and to mercy, and to follow, without partiality, the direction of reason, and the light of truth; and how consistently with this character, which it ought to be our highest ambition to maintain, we can ratify the present bill, your lordships are this day to consider. It is to be inquired, whether to suppose a man guilty, only because some guilt is suspected, be agreeable to justice; and whether it be rational before there is any proof of a crime, to point out the criminal. ”

“ The law, my lords, is the measure of political, as conscience of moral right; and he that breaks no law, may indeed be criminal, but is not punishable. The law likewise prescribes the method of prosecuting guilt; and as we, by omitting any crime in our laws, disable ourselves from punishing it, however publick or flagrant, so by regulating the process in our courts of justice, we give security to that guilt, which by that process cannot be detected. ”

“ But these communities of ours have it in their power to furnish to the world a far more illustrious example of human prescience, and benevolent care, by their prompt, exact, and well-considered administration of justice—including the cases both in the civil and the criminal courts. ”

“ Thus the institution of Laws, with their concomitants, the Court-house and the Jail, we refer to the Moral Sense of mankind, combining with the despotic selfishness of the strong, whose might often usurps the place of Justice. ”

“ When law is used in the sense of the standard of justice, it is said that it “is the standard of conduct which in consequence of the inner impulse that urges men toward a reasonable form of life, emanates from the whole, and is forced upon the individual”; [3] or that it is “the objective co-ordination of possible acts among men, according to an ethical principle which determines them and prevents their interference.” ”

“ The greater part of these common maxims have come into use from the practice of courts of justice, which have been naturally led to a more complete recognition and elaboration than was likely to suggest itself to others, of the rules necessary to enable them to fulfil their double function, of inflicting punishment when due, and of awarding to each person his right. ”

“ What then of justice and man's administration of justice? This, that they demand a sacred calm, elevation above the levels of personal feeling, mortal passion and ignorance. Law is to be of no private, sudden, unconsidered administration. ”

“ But, perhaps, if there was less Law, there might be more Justice, than in some other Courts; for, if the civil Law be a Law of universal Reason, judging of the Rectitude, or Obliquity of Mens Actions, every Man of common Sense is endued with a Portion of it, at least sufficient to make him distinguish Right from Wrong, or what the Civilians call, Malum in se. ”

“ With the common people, with whom these institutions have mainly to deal, justice should be dispensed with regard to appearances; there should be the formality of the superior courts, and somewhat of their show. ”

“ Thus the idea of legal constraint is still the generating idea of the notion of justice, though undergoing several transformations before that notion, as it exists in an advanced state of society, becomes complete. ”

“ A theory which regards the law as the command of the state and nothing more, and which entirely ignores the aspect of law as a public declaration of the principles of justice, would lose all its plausibility, if expressed in a language in which the term for law signifies justice also. ”

“ Those who write upon the principles of jurisprudence, consider only what the person to whom the obligation is due, ought to think himself entitled to exact by force; what every impartial spectator would approve of him for exacting, or what a judge or arbiter, to whom he had submitted his case, and who had undertaken to do him justice, ought to oblige the other person to suffer or to perform. ”

“ And if I have told you of it now, it is that you may learn that when loyal and well-affected men are trusted with the execution of the laws, the principle of justice is of more moment than the nice distinction of legal subtleties. ”

“ Justice is never man's precedent. The world quotes Moses, David, Paul, Jesus, to defend its conduct or prove its guilt.
Authority is another's opinion. Law is what has been done and sanctioned by mankind. The decision of one court binds another. One text is quoted to prove another. A man's act is made a rule of life. We say, to defend ourselves: “He did it.” The world's power of attorney is in its own handwriting. Our appeal is to some one else. We get our politics from our fathers, our religion from our mothers. The church is preaching what others believed. ”

“ Thus we see that the principal elements of the courts of today, the establishment of justice as a public trust, the determination of the facts by means of witnesses and a jury, the application of the law by one or more judges, the right of appeal to a higher court, are not artificial, but in the nature of things. ”

“ So, too, every man has, by nature, a right to judge of, and enforce, the rights, [Pg 104] and judge of, and redress the wrongs, of any and all other men. This right is included in his natural right to maintain justice between man and man, and to protect the injured party against the wrongdoer. ”

“ In Justice the young advocate who appears for the defence is not so much pleading for the client under the law, as arraigning the present legal system, setting up a new conception of law based upon common sense, human insight, and a morality finer than legalism. ”

“ And first of all, the science of jurisprudence, the pride of the human intellect, which, with all its defects, redundancies, and errors, is the collected reason of ages, combining the principles of original justice with the infinite variety of human concerns, as a heap of old exploded errors, would be no longer studied. ”

“ If it should be said, that the judgment might be unjust upon the merits, or erroneous in point in law, the proper answer is, that if true, that would furnish no ground for interference; for the evils of a new trial would be greater, than it would cure. Every such judgment ought to be presumed to be correct, and founded in justice. ”

“ Mankind reaches out after the absolute right, makes its constitutions to establish justice, and provide for the common defence. We report the decisions of wise men, and of courts ; we keep the record of cases decided, to. help us judge more wisely in time to come. The nation would enact laws : it aims to get the justest men in the State, that they may incorporate their aggregate sense of right into a statute. We set twelve honest men to try an alleged offender; they are to apply their joint justice to the special case. The people wish law to be embodied justice, administered without-passion. ”

“ Of course it is possible to undertake to regard the moral law, or such objects as justice, in the same light in which we have just been viewing the facts that result from social law and from convention. ”

“ Let your sympathy be awakened for those who are to come after you, for by the sentence which you pronounce in this case, it must ultimately be determined whether justice shall hereafter be impartially administered, or whether the rights of the citizen are to be prostrated at the feet of overbearing and tyrannical judges. ”

“ We are told indeed that justice is a state or disposition of the mind, the disposition to render to everyone his right or, as put by Aristotle, is the disposition to distribute according to desert. It [Pg 28] was this statement that captured the medieval jurists and which they made their text, but it is now regarded as incomplete and even inaccurate. One may have the disposition, the desire, the will, to render to every one his right, but unless he can know what is his fellow's right he may unwittingly fail to accord it to him and thus unwittingly do injustice. ”

“ There still exists, however, in the minds of many the belief that above and behind all the turmoil and strife of politics, all the flux and reflux of social movements and public sentiment, the confusion of enactments, amendments, and repeals of statutes, the swaying of judicial opinion, there is some law of nature or in nature, some criterion, which if ascertained and obeyed would be perfect justice. ”

“ The conceptions of the just and of justice implied in this statement of the conditions of just punishment may be expressed briefly as follows. 'The just' = that complex of social conditions which for each individual is necessary to enable him to realise his capacity of contributing to social good. 'Justice' is the habit of mind which leads us to respect those conditions in dealing with others,—not to interfere with them so far as they already exist, and to bring them into existence so far as they are not found in existence. ”

“ Hence I necessarily expected a state of future happiness; but, by a closer examination of the Scriptures, I am convinced that he has appointed a day in which the administration of justice will be conducted impartially; when the motives of human action, as well as the actions of human life, will undergo a strict investigation, and we shall be rewarded or punished according as we have done good or evil. ”

“ These are arguments addressed to your reasons and your consciences; not to be shaken in upright minds by any precedent—for no precedents can sanctify injustice; if they could, every human right would long ago have been extinct upon the earth. If the state trials in bad times are to be searched for precedents, what murders may you not commit—what [p. 399] law of humanity may you not trample upon—what rule of justice may you not violate—and what maxim of wise policy may you not abrogate and confound? ”

“ But the testimony is partially and unjustly quoted. Another estimate of the same evidence would argue as strongly, and even more so, for the inherent goodness of man. If we take the instance of human laws it will at once illustrate and confirm my assertion. If laws prove the existence and universality of crime, they prove also the existence and universality of the sense of justice, for laws, so far as they embody general principles, are the expression of common and collective sentiments. ”

“ In the last analysis it is for us to determine what is arbitrary or oppressive upon consideration of the natural and inherent principles of practical justice which lie at the base of our traditional jurisprudence and inspirit our Constitution. ”

“ Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all. ”

“ The nature of men and of organized society dictates the maintenance, in every field of action, of the highest and purest standards of justice and of right dealing; and it is essential to efficacious thinking in this critical matter that we should not entertain a narrow or technical conception of justice. By justice the lawyer generally12 means the prompt, fair, and open application of impartial rules; but we call ours a Christian civilization, and a Christian conception of justice must be much higher. ”

“ This consideration counsels lenity as to persons, such as is demanded by the humane and enlightened spirit of our times, and vigor and firmness in the carrying out of principles, such as is demanded by the national sense of justice and the exigencies of our situation. ”

“ In my first work, Social Statics, published twenty-three years ago, the essential thesis is that, apart from their warrant as alleged Divine injunctions, and apart from their authority as moral intuitions, the principles of justice are primarily deducible from the laws of life as carried on under social conditions. ”

“ Justice is the object of government, and those who support the government, must be agreed as to the justice to be executed by it, or they cannot rightfully unite in maintaining the government itself. ”

“ Justice, in the common use of the word, refers only to such rights and dues as can be precisely defined, enacted by law, and enforced by legal authority. Yet we virtually recognize a broader meaning of the word, whenever we place law and justice in opposition to each other, as when we speak of an unjust law. In this phrase we imply that there is a supreme and universal justice, of whose requirements human law is but a partial and imperfect transcript. ”