Samantha Joy Cheesman

Human Rights, Equality of Arms & Right to a Fair Trial

Samantha Joy Cheesman is currently an assistant law lecturer at the Institute of Comparative Law, University of Hungary, Szeged. She teaches a variety of subjects ranging from Constitutional law; the Protection of Human Rights; Criminal & Civil Procedure of America & the U.K. and Legal English.

She graduated with LL.B (Hons.) in Law from the University of Bristol and a Masters (LL.M) in International Human rights from the University of the West of England. She is also a non-practising barrister of the bar of England and Wales. She also has worked with several non government agencies looking at analysis and policy making in Human rights for people living with disabilities, sexual minorities and freedom of expression.

Her current research focuses upon the right to a fair trial, in particular defence rights as well as plea bargaining and its implementation in newly formed jurisdictions. Samantha has lived in both Hungary, Romania and France. She enjoys travelling and learning about new cultures. She is bilingual in Hungarian and English.

If the prospect of living in a world where trying to respect the basic rights of those around you and valuing each other simply because we exist are such daunting, impossible tasks then what sort of world are we left with? And what what sort of world do you want to live in?
Wonder Woman #170

If it means interfering in an ensconced, outdated system, to help just one woman, man or child…I’m willing to accept the consequences.
Wonder Woman #170

There isn't much Justice in this world. Perhaps that's why it's so satisfying to occasionally make some.
J'onn J'onzz

it is impossible to talk of eradicating crime: conflict is endemic to society.
Goriely, T., Tata, C. and Paterson, A. (1997) Expenditure on Criminal Legal Aid: Report on a Comparative Pilot Study of Scotland, England and Wales, and the Netherlands Legal studies Research Findings No.9 (Scotland: The Scottish Office Central Research Unit) at 4

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin (Inscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty)

Thus says the LORD: Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.

The famous French poet Voltaire who once said: I had two negative experiences concerning the law. The first was when I lost a trial. The second was when I won another one.There can be no equal justice where the kind of a trial a man gets depends on the amount of money he has.
United States Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, 1964.

Think of the poorest person you have ever seen and ask if your next will be of any use to him.
M.K. Gandhi (1869-1948).

If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.
Winston S. Churchill

There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
Ayn Rand

are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught.
Honoré de Balzac

A unjust law, is no law at all.
Martin Luther, Bibelausgaben, Die Bibel Nach Der Übersetzung Martin Luthers, Mit Apokryphen, Neue Rechtschreibung, Schwarz

If it means interfering in an ensconced, outdated system, to help just one woman, man or child…I’m willing to accept the consequences.
Wonder Woman #170

What was it that John Lennon said? ‘Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow.’ Let it grow already, and quit trying to legislate it!
Wonder Woman #200

Legally enforceable rights and duties underpin a democratic society, and access to justice is essential in order to make these rights and duties real.
Tony Blair, ’Foreward’ in Law Reform for All, ed. D. Bean (1996) at xiii.

The civil element (of citizenship) is composed of the rights necessary for individual freedom - liberty of the person, freedom of speech, thought and faith, the right to own property and to conclude valid contracts, and the right to justice. The last is of a different order from the others, because it is the right to defend and assert all of one’s rights on terms of equality with others and by due process of law.
T.H. Marshall, Citizenship and Social Class (1950) at 10-11

For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you wish you can do good to them; but you do not always have Me.
Mark: 14 7

There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.
Deuteronomy 12 v11

The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law.
Aristotle

It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.
Thomas Jefferson

The true and solid peace of nations consists not in equality of arms, but in mutual trust alone.
Pope John XXIII

In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same.
Albert Einstein