legal legitimacy Quotes

There has been a sea change in the way Democrats view and talk about the Supreme Court. Democrats used to respectfully disagree with the justices. Now they call them illegitimate and corrupt, partisan and extreme.

Just because a majority of the Supreme Court declares something to be 'constitutional' does not make it so.

New societies, like the United States, in general, tend to emphasize fundamental law rather than custom or usage precisely because they are new societies. Since customary usage is not available to them, they have to enact laws and legitimize them by linking them to fundamental law. New states serving old societies, like post revolutionary France, reject customary usage as inconsistent with their efforts to build something new. At most they are willing to incorporate elements of the customs that cannot be ignored in the hope of neutralizing or transforming them politically.

The [Supreme] Court's authority—possessed neither of the purse nor the sword—ultimately rests on sustained public confidence in its moral sanction. Such feeling must be nourished by the Court's complete detachment, in fact and appearance, from political entanglements and by abstention from injecting itself into the clash of political forces and political settlements.

The sanctity of law can be maintained only so long as it is the expression of the will of the people.

I’ve chosen not to challenge the rule of law, because in our system there really is no intermediate step between a Supreme Court decision and violent revolution. When the Supreme Court makes a decision, no matter how strongly one disagrees with it, one faces a choice –are we, in John Adams’ phrase, a nation of laws, or is it a contest made on raw power?

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.

If there be any who deny its [the Constitutions's] necessity, none can deny its authority.

Justice has taken its course and the authority and legitimacy of the legal process must be respected.

Law always chooses sides on the basis of enforcement power. Morality and legal niceties have little to do with it when the real question is: Who has the clout?

If our courts lose their authority and their rulings are no longer respected, there will be no one left to resolve the divisive issues that can rip the social fabric apart ... The courts are a safety valve without which no democratic society can survive.

Thus, if there exists a law which sanctions slavery or monopoly, oppression or robbery, in any form whatever, it must not even be mentioned. For how can it be mentioned without damaging the respect which it inspires? Still further, morality and political economy must be taught from the point of view of this law; from the supposition that it must be a just law merely because it is a law. Another effect of this tragic perversion of the law is that it gives an exaggerated importance to political passions and conflicts, and to politics in general.

But times and tempers are changed. Rebels are everywhere to be found who no longer wish to obey the law without knowing whence it comes, what are its uses, and whither arises the obligation to submit to it, and the reverence with which it is encompassed. The rebels of our day are criticizing the very foundations of society which have hitherto been held sacred, and first and foremost amongst them that fetish, law.

There is in all of a strong disposition to believe that anything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many persons have erroneously held that things are "just" because the law makes them so.

By removing the obligation to scrutinize evidence, we allow ourselves to operate on pre-existing prejudices, reducing our courts of law to mere kangaroo courts. A world without due process would contain far more injustice than we face today. Although some victims fight uphill evidential battles, we cannot make a better world by ditching due process. Rather, we must find ways of accounting for the difficult burdens of proof faced by some people, while also preserving the legitimacy of the law. This approach may be less gratifying than simply Tweeting #believethevictim, but it aims to preserve civil liberties that we all – regardless of identity – should cherish.

The multiplication of laws undermines the rule of law.

The judge's authority derives entirely from the fact that he is applying the law and not his personal values. That is why the American public accepts the decisions of its courts, accepts even decisions that nullify the laws a majority of the electorate or their representatives voted for.

Those in authority within institutions and social structures attempt to justify their rule by linking it, as if it were a necessary consequence, with moral symbols, sacred emblems, or legal formulae which are widely believed and deeply internalized. These central conceptions may refer to a god or gods, the 'votes of the majority,' the 'will of the people,' the 'aristocracy of talents or wealth,' to the 'divine right of kings' or to the alleged extraordinary endowment of the person of the ruler himself.

While the US Constitution marks these programs as illegal, my government argues that secret court rulings, which the world is not permitted to see, somehow legitimize an illegal affair. These rulings simply corrupt the most basic notion of justice - that it must be seen to be done. The immoral cannot be made moral through the use of secret law.

Laws are maintained in credit, not because they are essentially just, but because they are laws. It is the mystical foundation of their authority; they have none other.

The practice of a ruling power in the State is but a feeble proof of its legality.

It's been sanctioned by the courts, and I accept that.

Norms appearing in the form of law entitle actors to exercise their rights or liberties. However, one cannot determine which of these laws are legitimate simply by looking at the form of individual rights. Only by bringing in the discourse principle can one show that each person is owed a right to the greatest possible measure of equal liberties that are mutually compatible.

There are moments in history where Americans and their leaders must look at circumstances like this one and say, “Enough.” … A judge’s rulings stand because elected leaders and citizens have agreed that abiding by them is right and necessary to uphold the rule of law. That’s part of the social contract in America. But the judiciary must uphold its end of the social contract too. It must follow the rule of law and earn the confidence of the American people continually, every day, every month, every year. The awful reality is, from the moment this case landed in front of Judge Kacsmaryk, it’s been a rigged game all along. It’s illegitimate. The case is an affront to the Constitution and to the rule of law in the United States of America. So here’s what must happen if and when Judge Kacsmaryk issues his nationwide injunction halting access to mifepristone. President Biden and the FDA must ignore it.

No society can exist if respect for the law does not to some extent prevail; but the surest way to have the laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality are in contradiction, the citizen finds himself in the cruel dilemma of either losing his moral sense or of losing respect for the law, two evils of which one is as great as the other, and between which it is difficult to choose.