“Strain not the laws to make their tortures grievous.”
Act III, scene v.
Cato, A Tragedy (1713)
Context: See they suffer death,
But in their deaths remember they are men,
Strain not the laws to make their tortures grievous.
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Joseph Addison 226
politician, writer and playwright 1672–1719Related quotes
The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. Verulam Viscount St. Albans (1625), Of Judicature
“A Court has no right to strain the law because it causes hardship.”
Body v. Halse (1891) L. R. 1 Q. B. [1892], p. 207.
In response to the allegation that the U.S. has operated secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4500630.stm, December 5, 2005.
"Is There a Torturous Road to Justice?", The Los Angles Times, 2001-11-08
Keynote address to AIPAC, (March 12, 2007)
This means that under international law, no country can ever pass a law that allows torture. There can be no immunity from criminal liability for violation of a “jus cogens” prohibition. The United States has always prohibited torture — in our Constitution, laws, executive orders, judicial decisions and treaties. When we ratify a treaty, it becomes part of US law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification for torture,” the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which the US ratified, states unequivocally. Torture is considered a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions, also ratified by the United States. Geneva classifies grave breaches as war crimes. The US War Crimes Act and 18 USC, sections 818 and 3231, punish torture, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, and inhuman, humiliating or degrading treatment. And the Torture Statute criminalizes the commission, attempt, or conspiracy to commit torture outside the United States.
State-Sanctioned Torture in the Age of Trump https://truthout.org/articles/state-sanctioned-torture-in-the-age-of-trump/, by Marjorie Cohn, Truthout (23 January 2017)
Secretary of State confirmation hearing http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/18/politics/18TEXT-RICE2.html?pagewanted=13&ei=5070&en=0134785e4e0eeadd&ex=1182225600, January 18, 2005.