Ann Aiken Quotes

The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.

Unless the courts have the power to review the legislative and executive decisions of the nation, we do not have the rule of law… If we don’t follow our own rules, our own Constitution, then, my God, what are we fighting for?

Though written constitutions may be violated in moments of passion or delusion, yet they furnish a text to which those who are watchful may again rally and recall the people. They fix, too, for the people the principles of their political creed.

Our Supreme Court has been very clear that the government can't just simply say something and make it so.

We are not in the regime of Aurangzeb. We are in the regime of rule of law. When rule of law is concerned, it applies to government, it applies to Supreme Court, it applies to everybody.

If the jury have no right to judge of the justice of a law of the government, they plainly can do nothing to protect the people against the oppressions of the government; for there are no oppressions which the government may not authorize by law.

The Supreme Court, of course, has the responsibility of ensuring that our government never oversteps its proper bounds or violates the rights of individuals. But the Court must also recognize the limits on itself and respect the choices made by the American people.

The courts are under the Constitution, not over it.

Where the laws are not supreme, there demagogues spring up .... The law ought to be supreme over all.

Legal process is an essential part of the democratic process.

The Supreme Court has acted as the final barricade against the assaults of democratic majorities.

If the authority which the Constitution has confided to the judiciary department ... may ... be usurped by the military power, at its discretion, the people of the United States are no longer living under a government of laws, but every citizen holds life, liberty, and property at the will and pleasure of the army officer in whose military district he may happen to be found.

Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written constitution

We have ceased to be a nation under law but instead a homeland where the withered Bill of Rights, like a dead trumpet vine, clings to our pseudo-Roman columns

The most difficult thing to build up is the rule of law. America already had it when their nation began.

If the president is allowed to govern by executive action, then the rule of law greatly suffers.

The government, under my leadership, will act to implement the rule of law and to maintain the independence of the judicial system, which is one of the pillars of maintaining a democratic system.

Where has the genius of the pedistal [sic] of the laws and constitution of our boasted country fled?

When we uphold the rule of law, our counterterrorism tools are more likely to withstand the scrutiny of our courts, our allies, and the American people.

It is the Constitution of the United States that has been undermined, undercut, and is under attack. It is the American people's liberties that is in jeopardy. That is why I wrote 'Losing America.'

The American people have a right to except that the rule of law will guarantee that even if we don't like the policy, that it's done properly.

This is a case if the President is permitted to be above the law, then we no longer have a republic.

I think the Justice Department needs to be the final protector of the people of the United States of America.

Mexico is now a country where we have justice and a rule of law that didn't exist here in past years.

In my day, the president ruled with authority before the law, but now all that is lost.