Geoffrey Robertson > Quotes

“To the end that no chief officer or magistrate may hereafter presume traitorously or maliciously to imagine or contrive the enslaving or destroying of the English nation, and expect impunity for so doing … In this final flourish is found the principle that justified the trial of Charles I in the eyes of weary soldiers and their supporters in Parliament and the city. It was a means of deterring future tyrants from maltreating their own people. It was designed to end the impunity which Machiavelli had argued in The Prince should always protect rulers from the consequences of their crimes. When”
― Geoffrey Robertson, The Tyrannicide Brief: The Story of the Man Who Sent Charles I to the Scaffold

“What should distress modern Australians, in addition to the virulence of the racism which infected these founding fathers, is the fact that it blinded them to the advantage of adopting, like the US, a code of universal human values, a bedrock of principles upon which Australian law could develop logically and humanely. Thus Australia was endowed with a supreme law – its constitution – which lacked any systemic protection for citizen liberties.”
― Geoffrey Robertson, Rather His Own Man