Alan Siegel Quotes

Laws should not be subtle. They are designed for people of average understanding.

Laws must be clear, precise, and uniform for all citizens.

I really did try to write it so that an educated public that cares about issues like this doesn't have to be a lawyer and can read it and understand it.

At the foundation of our civil liberties lies the principle that denies to government officials an exceptional position before the law and which subjects them to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen.

On the whole, we think of our consumers - other judges, lawyers, the public. The law that the Supreme Court establishes is the law that they must live by, so all things considered, it's better to have it clearer than confusing.

There cannot be a law-abiding society if no one knows in advance what law they are to abide by, but must wait for judges to create ex post facto legal rulings based on “evolving standards” rather than known rules.

India has a law. The political parties or the religious heads have no right to control that law.

I think processes should not differ just because you are a minister. This is a job - a responsibility - not a right to override the processes that every citizen goes through.

It is of course one of the great joys of our country, a beacon of democracy that the world admires, that every citizen is equal under the law - even the prime minister - and no one, not even him, is above it.

Believing in and practising the principles of the rule of law is, with our liberty and democracy, among the most powerful weapons we have. It is less effective if we blur its clarity and we should do this as sparingly as possible.

It's a social contract we make. We're willing to give up certain things. We give you the right to tax us. We give you the right to lock us up. We give you the right to put us on surveillance, search our homes, whatever and, in exchange, we get a functioning society that keeps us relatively safe, and that's the tradeoff we make.

I believe in enforcing the laws as written by the Legislature, as signed by the governor.

The function of Government must be to favor no small group at the expense of its duty to protect the rights of personal freedom and of private property of all its citizens.

In its proper meaning equality before the law means the right to participate in the making of the laws by which one is governed, a constitution which guarantees democratic rights to all sections of the population, the right to approach the court for protection or relief in the case of the violation of rights guaranteed in the constitution, and the right to take part in the administration of justice as judges, magistrates, attorneys-general, law advisers and similar positions.

Loyalty to the principles upon which our Government rests positively demands that the equality before the law which it guarantees to every citizen should be justly and in good faith conceded in all parts of the land.

The state operates in a legal vacuum. There exists no contract between the state and its citizens.

In our democracy, near equality is no equality. Government either treats everyone the same, or it doesn't. And right now it doesn't.

The Constitution was not written to restrain the citizen's behavior, it was writtne to restrain the government's behavior.

It is to law alone that men owe justice and liberty. It is this salutary organ, of the will of all which establishes in civil rights the natural equality between men. It is this celestial voice which dictates to each citizen the precepts of public reason, and teaches him to act according to the rules of his own judgment and not to behave inconsistently with himself. It is with this voice alone that political leaders should speak when. they command.

Laws are not made like lime-twigs or nets, to catch everything that toucheth them; but rather like sea-marks, to guide from shipwreck the ignorant passenger.

What are we going to do if citizens are disarmed, and the government doesn't obey its own laws?

I want our legal system to work better. I want it to be streamlined, I want it to be clearer. I don’t think you have to — shouldn’t have to hire a lawyer to figure out how to get into this country legally.

She [Justice sandra Day O'Connor] wrote - and this is one we should all remember - she wrote that even war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens. She held that even this president is not above the law.

I have a lot of faith in justice systems around the world even though there were cases in the past where that faith wasn't justified in some countries.

Almost all the worlds' constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which We the People tell the government what it is allowed to do. We the People are free.