Responsible government in a democracy lives always in the shadow of coming defeat; and this makes it eager to satisfy those with whose destinies it is charged.
Harold J. Laski
The Public Record
Harold Joseph Laski was an English political theorist and economist. He was active in politics and served as the chairman of the British Labour Party from 1945 to 1946 and was a professor at the London School of Economics from 1926 to 1950. He first promoted pluralism by emphasising the importance of local voluntary communities such as trade unions. After 1930, he began to emphasize the need for a workers' revolution, which he hinted might be violent. Laski's position angered Labour leaders who promised a nonviolent democratic transformation. Laski's position on democracy-threatening violence came under further attack from Prime Minister Winston Churchill in the 1945 UK general election, and the Labour Party had to disavow Laski, its own chairman.
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The history of the struggle for popular freedom has given us knowledge of certain rules in the organization of a state the presence of which is fundamental to freedom.
It can, I think, be shown that no citizen is secure in liberty unless certain rights are guaranteed to him, rights which the government of the state cannot hope to overthrow; and unless, to secure the maintenance of those rights, there is…
It is urgent that they should be binding upon all without fear or favour; that I, for instance, should be able to live secure in the knowledge that they will not apply to me differently from their incidence upon others.
Not the least important problem of our time is that which arises when the legality of their administration is in question.
In Anglo-Saxon communities it has been regarded as elementary that the interpretation of law should be entrusted to an independent body of officials--the judges--who can arbitrate impartially between government and citizens.
The business of a judiciary, broadly speaking, is the impartial interpretation of the law as between government and citizen, or between classes of citizens who dispute with one another.
The government, for instance, charges a man with treason; obviously he is deprived of something essential to his freedom if the law is strained so as to make of treason something it in fact is not in order to cover the acts which the…
Here, obviously, the judge must be assured that his independence may be maintained with safety to himself.
He must not suffer in his person or position because of the view he takes.
It must not be within the power either of the government or other persons to deprive him of his authority because, as best he may, he applies the law.
There may be an age-limit of service, of course; but, this apart, nothing should permit the removal of a judge from the bench except corruption or physical unfitness.
Once a man has been appointed to judicial office nothing must stand in the way of his complete independence of mind.
Election, re-election, a power in the government to dismiss, are all of them incompatible with the function the judge is to perform.
Judicial independence is not merely a matter of mechanical technique; it is also psychological in character.
The judge whose promotion is dependent upon the will of the executive, even more, the judge who may look to a political career as a source of future distinction, neither of these is adequately protected in that independence of mind which…
It seems to me, therefore, that we must so organize the method of judicial promotion as to prevent the executive from choosing men of its own outlook, and, further, see to it that appointment to the Bench is definitely taken as the end of…
But I think we have grave reason for fear when the growth of this delegated legislative authority is accompanied with, or followed by, the conference of powers upon government departments themselves to determine the question of whether the…
I regard the growth of delegated legislation as both necessary and desirable; but if it is not gravely to impair our freedom, it should, I think, be developed only under the amplest safeguards.
No body of civil servants, however liberal-minded they may be, ought to be free both to make the law and to devise the procedure by which its legality may be tested; and that, be it remembered, without a power of appeal from their decision.
But one wants to be certain that in arriving at his decision the expert has been compelled to take account of all the relevant evidence; that the parties to his decision have had their day in court.
And we must remember that, however great be the good will of the public services, what, to them, may seem a simple matter of administrative routine, may be to the citizens involved a denial of the very substance of freedom.
The right to sue the state in tort seems to me quite fundamental to freedom.
I can see no reason in the world why, like any other body serving the public, it should not be responsible for the torts of its agents.
But we cannot understand the eighteenth century, or its theories, unless we realize that its temper was still dominantly aristocratic.
Politicians like Harold J. Laski
