Equality Before the Law
idea · 2 works · 2 mentions · 2 anchored passages
equal justice · equality before the law · laws ought to be equal · no exemption from the ordinary course of legal proceedings
in the texts
Letters
The principle of equal and consistent justice, which Demosthenes argues the Athenians are violating in practice by treating Lycurgus' sons more harshly than comparable past cases warrant.
Accordingly, how can it be equal justice when some men are in office who have no right even to speak and others are in fetters whose father was useful to you in numerous ways?
in the next place, you claim this action to be equality before the law, just as if you were inspecting equality in the field of weights or measures and not deliberating about men’s ethical and political principles.
The Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution, 1625–1660
The principle, reserved in the Agreement of the People, that all persons are equally bound by law regardless of rank, and that laws must not be destructive of the people's welfare.
That as the laws ought to be equal, so they must be good, and not evidently destructive to the safety and well-being of the people.
That in all laws made or to be made every person may be bound alike, and that no tenure, estate, charter, degree, birth, or place do confer any exemption from the ordinary course of legal proceedings whereunto others are subjected.