Legal Authority Quotes
In 1832 the Supreme Court held that the state of Georgia could not remove Creek and Cherokee Indians from lands that had been guaranteed to them by a federal treaty. The president disagreed with the court, then headed by John Marshall:. Marshall could not do so without the executive. The Indians were illegally removed to Western lands.
This is a very important and fundamental quotation. Jefferson, John Adams, John Jay and many other Founding Fathers told us that the jury of peers was the final arbiter of a court case. However, many modern judges and legislatures have tried to erode that principle. In most states judges instructs juries that they are the final arbiter of the facts but he/she is the final arbiter of the law and how it should be applied in the case. But the founders wanted the jury to be the final arbiters of the law as well as the facts as is illustrated here and in {640587} and {640589}. For a more modern concurring view, see {640590}.
Critics ask, “If legal authorities are so corrupted by making others suffer, why do they continue to do it, and why so much official corruption? Mises never provided an answer to this dilemma.
In the English system the checks and balances of the American system are not present. Historically in England the Monarch and the Parliament acted as checks upon each other. With a Constitutional Monarch there is no institutional check on Parliament. The checks are their restraint--respect for precedent--and the voters. The Prime Minister is a member of Parliament and has no powers other than what Parliament gives him/her. The courts in England are under Parliament and the upper house, the House of Lords is the equivalent of the highest court—but it may always be overruled by the parliament itself.
