Latin Legal Maxims
By: Paul Stam, Representative of the 37th District

Objective: Match the Latin maxim with its English translation and give yourself a reward.

____ 1. Quasi agnum committere lupo, ad devorandum.
____ 2. Lex non exacte definit, sed arbitrio boni viri permittit.
____ 3. Omnibus qui reipublicae praesunt etiam atque etiam mando, ut omnibus aequos se praebeant judices, perinde ac in judiciali libro scriptum habetur; nec quicquam formident quin jus commune audacter libereque dicant.
____ 4. Juris praecepta sunt haec honeste vivere, alterum non laedere, suum cuique tribuere.
____ 5. Sanctio justa, jubens honesta, et prohibens contraria.
____ 6. Tam immensus aliarum super alias acervatarum legum cumulus.
____ 7. Nulli vendemus, nulli negabimus aut differemus, rectum vel justitiam.

A. A just decree, commanding what is right and forbidding the contrary.
B. I again and again command all who are set over the state, that they show themselves just judges to all, as is written in the judicial book, and that no fear deter them from declaring the common law boldly and freely.
C. To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay, right or justice.
D. Like committing a lamb to a wolf to be devoured.
E. So immense a heap of laws piled one above another.
F. The precepts of the law are these: to live honestly, to injure no one, and to give every man his due.
G. The law does not exactly define, but leaves to the discretion of a good man.

Source: Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Law of England
Stam/Nulli Vendemus

The writer represents Southern Wake County in the North Carolina House of Representatives.