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Qamar Rafiq

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“Women are infantilized, demeaned, deprived of dignity, denied their rights, and all in the name of the rule of law. The elite approach followed within the courtrooms often asserts supremacy while excluding the poor, women, children, Dalits, tribals, and other subaltern groups. In itself, a court cannot change the law, yet, the court has the power to interpret and implement the given law in a sensitive manner while upholding the constitutional spirit and values, and that is what a litigant expects and society hopes for. However, this is not happening.”

“When the pendulum swings and it reaches an extreme on either side, you're going to get a totalitarianism, no matter what it starts out calling itself because once people with extreme ideologies actually get some power - although they may have come in on this will make everything wonderful, except we have to get rid of those people, and there's always a those people that have to be gotten rid of - and then that doesn't happen, and they've got some power. And they quite enjoy it, and they wish to retain it. So the American experiment, one of the hallmarks of it was peaceful transfer of power. That is what we consider, you know, one of the absolute key elements of an open liberal democracy. And when you see that starting to be shut down and going away, rule of law goes out the window, another kind of law replaces it, which is joined at the hip with whoever's running the thing. And if you get on the bad side of that, you're kind of doomed because you're not going to get a fair trial, and you're probably going to get a bullet in the back of the neck.”

“William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!” Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?” William Roper: “Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!” Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!”

“At the present time it is widely accepted among lawyers that law is higher than morality—law is something which is shaped and developed, whereas morality is something inchoate and amorphous. This is not the case. The opposite is true: morality is higher than law! Law is our human attempt to embody in rules a part of that moral sphere which is above us. We try to understand this morality, bring it down to earth, and present it in the form of law. Sometimes we are more successful, sometimes less. Sometimes we have a mere caricature of morality, but morality is always higher than law. This view must never be abandoned.”

“There are doubtless those who would wish to lock up all those who suspected of terrorist and other serious offences and, in the time-honored phrase, throw away the key. But a suspect is by definition a person whom no offence has been proved. Suspicions, even if reasonably entertained, may prove to be misplaced, as a series of tragic miscarriages of justice has demonstrated. Police officers and security officials can be wrong. It is a gross injustice to deprive of his liberty for significant periods a person who has committed no crime and does not intend to do so. No civilized country should willingly tolerate such injustices.”