Alan Dershowitz Quotes

Mexico established a unique three-part governing system shared by the government, the information commission and civil society organisations.

Oppositions clean and purify those in office and we in the opposition are in fact the detergents of democracy.

… the people as the fourth branch of government

If you believe in democracy, why shouldn't you know what the government is doing?

We all need to provide the checks and balances for democracy.

What should be targeted is a concept of organic, and not just mechanic, democracy that preserves the rule of law, separation of powers, and that is participatory and pluralistic.

Thank God for our form of government. The media won't let there be any cover-up.

Representative government demands an ongoing conversation between legislators and constituents.

We must have government, but we must watch them like a hawk.

Authoritarian regimes in countries with weak, uninformed, or repressed civil societies will be less susceptible to transparency’s pressures.

What makes a politician accountable is not that there are millions of people who vote, but that there are procedures of government that force him to account for himself.

When our Founders created this great experiment in self-governance, the House of Representatives became, by design, the body closest to the people. We are the most accountable, and we must be the most transparent.

No government can continue good, but under the control of the people.

As long as the government's actions are secret, it cannot be held accountable. A government for the people and by the people should be transparent to the people.

Accountability is the essence of democracy. If people do not know what their government is doing, they cannot be truly self-governing. The national security state assumes the government secrets are too important to be shared, that only those in the know can see classified information, that only the president has all the facts, that we must simply trust that our rulers of acting in our interest.

When our government is spoken of as some menacing, threatening, foreign entity, it ignores the fact that in our democracy, government is us

The great thing about Watergate is, is that the system worked. The American system worked. The press did its job. We did what we were supposed to do.

Some people think African states cannot be trusted with the cookie jar. But there are absolutely good NGOs who have this feeling of human solidarity and who also recognize that their work can only be supplementary to the government.

It is only when there is the supervision and critical oversight from the people that the government will be in a position to do an even better job, and employees of government departments will be the true public servants of the people.

Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.

For politicians to be honest, the public needs to allow them to be honest, and the media, which mediates between the politicians and the public, needs to allow those politicians to be honest. If local democracy is to flourish, it is about the active and informed engagement of every citizen.

In the 21st century, the countries that thrive will be the ones where citizens know their voices will be heard because the institutions are transparent.

Democracy needs support, and the best support for democracy comes from other democracies.

I do strongly believe myself that members of the government who sit in the House of Lords should be accountable to the elected House because otherwise there is a democratic deficit, and that is wrong.

Government will no longer be run on the whims of individuals.