The Judge does not make the law. It is people that make the law. Therefore if a law is unjust, and if the Judge judges according to the law, that is justice, even if it is not just.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the distinction between law and justice, highlighting that laws created by people can be unjust.
Alan Paton's quote explores the complex relationship between law and justice, asserting that judges interpret laws rather than create them. It suggests that when judges enforce unjust laws, their decisions may still be legally valid, yet they do not necessarily reflect true justice. The quote challenges us to reflect on the morality of laws and the role of individuals in shaping justice within society.
In practice
In a debate about legal reforms, this quote can highlight the importance of ensuring fairness in laws.
Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that's the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing. Nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him if he gives too much.
Ask yourself not if this or that is expedient, but if it is right.
One day in Johannesburg, and already the tribe was being rebuilt, the house and soul being restored.
What broke in a man when he could bring himself to kill another? What broke when he could bring himself to thrust down the knife into the warm flesh, to bring down the axe on the living head, to cleave down between the seeing eyes, to shoot the gun that would drive death into the beating heart?
It is not permissible to add to one's possesions if these things can only be done at the cost of other men. Such development has only one true name, and that is exploitation.
If you wrote a novel in South Africa which didn't concern the central issues, it wouldn't be worth publishing.
The Black skin is not a badge of shame, but rather a glorious symbol of national greatness.
People 'demand' the opportunity to gamble away money they do not have, just like people 'demand' money from loan sharks at extortionate interest rates. This is a warped, empty type of freedom, in which the powerful are free to exploit the vulnerable.
The intolerance of the few, or the risk of it, carries the day against the wider humanity of the many.
Christian teaching about sex is not a set of isolated prohibitions; it is an integral part of what the Bible has to say about living in such a way that our lives communicate the character of God.
Envy is the central fact of American life.
Emotional life is - alongside work - one of the great challenges of existence and is a theme that I keep returning to.
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