Thomas Hardiman Quotes

The obligation of any judge is to decide the case before the court, and the nature of the issue presented will largely determine the appropriate scope of the principle on which its decision should rest.

The state in commissioning its judges has commanded them to judge, but neither in constitution nor in statute has it formulated a code to define the manner of their judging.

One cannot tell the High Court what to adjudicate. They must judge, and then the legislature must act accordingly.

Judges have to have the humility to recognize that they operate within a system of precedent, shaped by other judges equally striving to live up to the judicial oath.

Judges ought to remember that their office is Ius dicere and not Ius dare; to interpret law, and not to make law, or give law.

It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.

My job is to write opinions, decide cases and write opinions, not to respond to idiocies.

We in Congress don’t have much influence on the Supreme Court. We confirm judges and then we never hear from them. They don’t call. They don’t write.

We don't pay judges to think; we pay judges to rule on the law.

I certainly would not vote against a particular judge already in office because of a decision in a case. You may not agree with a judge's decision, but the judge must act within the law.

Judges have their own point of view, and we have to respect them for that. Rather than feeling bad, we respect our judges and their opinions.

A judge is not a god or a king. He has the last word most of the time, but sometimes, one makes mistakes.

The proper role of the judiciary is one of interpreting and applying the law, not making it.

The position the Government finds itself in is not one of constructing a law, but of carrying out a decision given by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

Judges wear legal professionalism and precedent as a mantel that secures legitimacy for their decisions. It's how they distinguish themselves from politicians or administrative agencies, while wielding power that is sometimes much greater than those democratically accountable actors.

I don't know how a judge can concentrate on being fair and impartial when he or she is faced with possible jail time for making a decision that others deem incorrect.

At least there's a political input, but when you put on the robe, at that point the politics is over.

I own that it is a good deal of a mystery to me how judges, of all persons in the world, should put their faith in dicta. A brief experience on the bench was enough to reveal to me all sorts of cracks and crevices and loopholes in my own opinions when picked up a few months after delivery and reread with due contrition.

Unfortunately, what many people forget is that judges are just lawyers in robes.

A justice is not like a law professor, who might say, 'This is my theory... and this is what I'm going to be faithful to and consistent with,' and in twenty years will look back and say, 'I had a consistent theory of the First Amendment as applied to a particular area.'

What five members of the Supreme Court say the law is may be something vastly different from what Congress intended the law to be.

I wouldn't approach the issue of judging in the way the president does. Judges can't rely on what's in their heart. They don't determine the law. Congress makes the law. The job of a judge is to apply the law.

The bedrock of our democracy is the rule of law and that means we have to have an independent judiciary, judges who can make decisions independent of the political winds that are blowing.

Presidents come and go, but the Supreme Court goes on forever.

The constitution is either a superior paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it. It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. This is the very essence of judicial duty.