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The Magistrate's Blog (2005-2012)

This blog has migrated to www.magistratesblog.blogspot.co.uk This blog is anonymous, and Bystander's views are his and his alone. Where his views differ from the letter of the law, he will enforce the letter of the law because that is what he has sworn to do. If you think that you can identify a particular case from one of the posts you are wrong. Enough facts are changed to preserve the truth of the tale but to disguise its exact source.

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Location: Near London, United Kingdom

The blog is written by a retired JP, with over 30 years' experience on the Bench.

Friday, January 26, 2007

A Bit of Seasonal Fun Updated

I put this on the blog in December. I have now added the answers from the January edition of Benchmark:-

"In the current issue of Benchmark, a newsletter published for the judiciary, there is a Christmas quiz set by Jim Wood, Regional Chairman of the Social Security and Child Support Appeal Tribunal".

So who said this? :-
1. If it falls to me to start a fight to cut out the cancer of bent and twisted journalism in our country with the simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of British fair play, so be it.
Jonathan Aitken
2. A long time ago came a man on a track
Walking thirty miles with a pack on his back/And he put down his load where he thought it was the best/Made a home in the wilderness/He built a cabin and a winter store/And he ploughed up the ground by the cold lake shore/And the other travellers came riding down the track/And they never went further, no, they never went back/Then came the churches then came the schools/Then came the lawyers then came the rules
Dire Straits, Telegraph Road
3. To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.
Magna Carta, clause 40.
4. The law in its majestic equality forbids rich and poor alike from sleeping under bridges, from begging in the streets, and from stealing bread.
Anatole France, The Red Lily
5. We shouldn’t have all these campaigns to get the (Birmingham six) released if they’d been hanged. They’d have been forgotten and the whole community would be satisfied.
Lord Denning, writing in the Spectator, August 1990
6. In this country, it is thought well to shoot an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.
Voltaire, Candide
7. I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue,
That prisoners call the sky.
Oscar Wilde, Ballad of Reading Gaol
8. Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?
W. Rees-Mogg, 1st June 1967, on the prosecution of Mick Jagger for the possession of cannabis.
9. If the sons of company directors, and judges’ fine and private daughters, had to go to school in a slum school, dumped by some joker in a damp back alley.../Buttons would be pressed, rules would be broken/ Strings would be pulled /and magic words spoken/Invisible fingers would mould palaces of gold.
Leon Rossellson, Palaces of Gold
10. Put on your high-heel sneakers, child/Wear your wig-hat on your head now/Put on your high-heel sneakers, baby/Wear your wig-hat on your head/Ya know you’re looking mighty good, really/I’m pretty sure you’re gonna knock ‘em dead
Tommy Tucker, High-Heel Sneakers
11. Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.
Otto von Bismarck
12. If this is justice, I am a banana.
Ian Hislop, on an award of £600,000 libel damages to Sonia Sutcliffe, against Private Eye, May 1989.
13. ‘To my mind,’ observed the Chairman of the Bench of Magistrates cheerfully, ‘the only difficulty that presents itself in this otherwise very clear case is, how we can possibly make it sufficiently hot for the incorrigible rogue and hardened ruffian whom we see cowering in the dock before us. Let me see: he has been found guilty, on the clearest evidence, first, of stealing a valuable motor-car; secondly, of driving to the public danger; and, thirdly, of gross impertinence to the rural police. Mr. Clerk, will you tell us, please, what is the very stiffest penalty we can impose for each of these offences? Without, of course, giving the prisoner the benefit of any doubt, because there isn’t any.’
Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows
14. Judge every dispute fairly whether it concerns only your own people or involves foreigners who live among you. Show no partiality in your decisions, judge everyone on the same basis no matter who he is.
Deuteronomy Chapter 1, v.16
15. No, no! – sentence first, verdict afterwards.
Lewis Carroll, the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland
16. “Ask yourselves the question: would you approve of your young sons, young daughters – because girls can read as well as boys – reading this book. Is it a book that you would have lying around the house? Is it a book you would wish your wife or servant to read?”
Mervyn Griffith-Jones, prosecuting counsel, R v. Penguin Books Ltd (the Lady Chatterley case).

No. 13 is my favourite. they don't make 'em like that any more!

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