Judiciary Quotes - Page 5

• The Turkish judiciary has a very strong nationalist tradition, which is gradually changing, but only gradually. And since there was a nationalist outcry against Orhan Pamuk's remarks about Turkey's need to confront its past, I'm not surprised that one public prosecutor in an Istanbul borough should have decided to act. I don't expect the proceedings to lead to a conviction. But in any case one mustn't generalize and say that's the way Turkey behaves; it's the way one nationalist public prosecutor behaves.

  Andrew Mango

  Strong, Past, Tradition

  "The Turks Today". Interview With Julian Brookes, www.motherjones.com. October 26, 2005.

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• What has been happening in Turkey. The country has been taken over by the present rulers and they have been very, very skillful and taking over everything and taking over control over everything and now taking control over the judiciary. They will be taking over the constitution. Unless there will be some radical change, which is unlikely, I will say the tradition of Kemalism will be dead in Turkey. And Turkey is becoming a more Islamic state, in the traditional sense.

  Bernard Lewis

  Country, Taken, Islamic

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• We call on the Senate to reject any judicial nominee who does not affirm fundamental civil rights, including a woman's right [to obtain an abortion on demand]. The threat an [pro-life] judiciary poses to women's lives demands nothing less.

  Susana Martinez

  Rights, Pro Life, Abortion

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• Not surprisingly, the federal judiciary nearly always rules in favor of the federal government. Judicial review, contrary to the assurances of its advocates, has hardly restrained Congress at all. Instead it has progressively stripped the states of their traditional powers, while allowing federal power to grow unchecked.

  Joseph Sobran

  Government, Judicial Review, Favors

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• The reasonableness of the agency of the national courts in cases in which the state tribunals cannot be supposed to be impartial, speaks for itself. No man ought certainly to be a judge in his own cause, or in any cause in respect to which he has the least interest or bias.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Men, Agency, Judging

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2009). “The Federalist”, p.525, Harvard University Press

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• As a result of this article, I was invited to testify in the Senate Judiciary Committee on privacy law.

  Norman Lamm

  Law, Privacy, Results

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• New York [cannot] remain the center of commerce and capital for this continent, unless it has an independent bar and an honest judiciary.

  Samuel J. Tilden

  New York, Independent, Bars

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• For a long time in American history, people didn't even come up before the Senate. They didn't come before the Judiciary Committee, and up until about 1923, something like that.

  Fred Thompson

  Long, People, American History

  "Choosing a New Supreme Court Justice". "Special Report" with Brit Hume, www.foxnews.com. July 6, 2005.

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• I find it difficult to believe that God would want us to strip the courts of their powers to interpret the laws of this land, albeit with the divergent opinions. I shudder that my colleagues do not understand the dynamics of the Federal judiciary.

  Alcee Hastings

  Believe, Law, Land

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• But might not his [the president's] nomination be overruled? I grant it might, yet this could only be to make place for another nomination by himself. The person ultimately appointed must be object of his preference, though perhaps not in the first degree. It is also not very probable that his nomination would often be overruled.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Often Is, President, Degrees

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, Henry Barton Dawson (1864). “The Fœderalist: A Collection of Essays, Written in Favor of the New Constitution, as Agreed Upon by the Fœderal Convention, September 17, 1787. Reprinted from the Original Text. With an Historical Introduction and Notes”, p.529, New York : C. Scribner ; London : Sampson Low

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• Congress is, after all, not a body of laymen unfamiliar with the commonplaces of our law. This legislation was the formulation of the two Judiciary Committees, all of whom are lawyers, and the Congress is predominately a lawyers' body.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Law, Two, Body

  "Callanan v. United States, 364 U.S. 587". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. January 9, 1961.

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• The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between the two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Law, Two, People

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Quentin P. Taylor, John Jay (1998). “The Essential Federalist: A New Reading of the Federalist Papers”, p.145, Rowman & Littlefield

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• Privatizing bits of the prison industry was a step in the right direction, but what we didn't have - until recently - were proper instruments for incentivizing the judiciary. That's what the 'kids for cash' judges were apparently experimenting with.

  Thomas Frank

  Kids, Judging, Cash

  "Lock ‘em Up — Jailing Kids is a Proud American Tradition" by Thomas Frank, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 2, 2009.

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• Excluded by my birth and tastes from the social order, I was not aware of its diversity. Nothing in the world was irrelevant: the stars on a general's sleeve, the stock-market quotations, the olive harvest, the style of the judiciary, the wheat exchange, flower-beds. Nothing. This order, fearful and feared, whose details were all inter-related, had a meaning: my exile.

  Jean Genet

  Stars, Flower, Order

  Jean Genet (1973). “The Thief's Journal”

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• If we are to avoid that catastrophe [a nuclear World War III], a system of world order — preferably a system of world government — is mandatory. The proud nations someday will see the light and, for the common good and their own survival, yield up their precious sovereignty, just as America's thirteen colonies did two centuries ago. When we finally come to our senses and establish a world executive and parliament of nations, thanks to the Nuremburg precedent we will already have in place the fundamentals for the third branch of government, the judiciary.

  Walter Cronkite

  War, Light, Government

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• Experience has instructed us that no skill in the science of government has yet been able to discriminate and define, with sufficient certainty, its three great provinces the legislative, executive, and judiciary; or even the privileges and powers of the different legislative branches.

  James Madison

  Government, Skills, Different

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1842). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788”, p.164

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• I do not believe it is the function of the judiciary to step in and change the law because the times have changed. I do well understand the difference between legislating and judging. As a judge, it is not my function to develop public policy.

  Sandra Day O'Connor

  Believe, Law, Times Have Changed

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• Separation of power says the judiciary committee is supposed to confirm qualified judges and then what the Supreme Court does, that is their function, not my function.

  Arlen Specter

  Judging, Doe, Separation

  "Specter: 'I'm pro-choice ... But I don't make the decisions'". "Judy Woodruff's Inside Politics", www.cnn.com. November 9, 2004.

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• The judiciary in Burma is not independent. It's widely known, everybody knows that.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Independent, Burma, Knows

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• Judicial activists are nothing short of radicals in robes--contemptuous of the rule of law, subverting the Constitution at will, and using their public trust to impose their policy preferences on society. In fact, no radical political movement has been more effective in undermining our system of government than the judiciary. And with each Supreme Court term, we hold our collective breath hoping the justices will do no further damage, knowing full well they will disappoint. Such is the nature of judicial tyranny.

  Mark Levin

  Law, Knowing, Government

  Mark R. Levin (2006). “Men in Black: How the Supreme Court Is Destroying America”, p.22, Regnery Publishing

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• We want to determine whether he understands the inherent limits that make an unelected Judiciary inferior to Congress or the President in making policy judgments. That, for example, a judge will never be in the best position to know what is in the national security interests of our country.

  Alberto Gonzales

  Country, Judging, President

  Speech to American Enterprise Institute, www.justice.gov. January 17, 2007.

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• The judiciary must be strengthened and released from political interference.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Political, Interference

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• It is galling to see such mendacious hypocrites as Kennedy and Biden at the Senate Judiciary Committee sitting in judgment on distinguished jurists.

  Conrad Black

  Hypocrite, Sitting, Biden

  "The World According to Conrad Black". www.thestar.com. March 11, 2007.

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• That the legislative and executive powers of the State should be separate and distinct from the judiciary; and that the members of the two first may be restrained from oppression, by feeling and participating the burdens of the people, they should, at fixed periods, be reduced to a private station, return into that body from which they were originally taken, and the vacancies be supplied by frequent, certain, and regular elections, in which all, or any part of the former members, to be again eligible, or ineligible, as the laws shall direct.

  George Mason

  Taken, Law, Two

  "The Federal and State Constitutions Colonial Charters, and Other Organic Laws of the States, Territories, and Colonies Now or Heretofore Forming the United States of America" compiled and edited by Newton Thorpe, Washington, DC : Government Printing Office, 1909.

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• The Latin American has no tribe to fall back on, as the African does, no reliable judiciary to defend his rights as the European does, no social ideal or sacred constitution as the North American does, no pervasive mythology to soften life as it does in Asia, and no even an ideology to subscribe to, as does the Russian or Chinese. Without wealth, what is there left to him but his manhood, to be flaunted and defended at every occasion?

  Ted Simon

  Latin, Fall, Rights

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