"There are no insuperable constitutional difficulties"
About this Quote
Spoken like a jurist who understands that constitutions don’t just constrain power; they also license it. Lionel Murphy’s line - “There are no insuperable constitutional difficulties” - is deceptively mild, almost bureaucratic, yet it carries a hard-edged political message: stop hiding behind the parchment. In Australian public life, “constitutional difficulty” is a favorite alibi, a way to dress up caution, timidity, or self-interest as legal inevitability. Murphy punctures that pose by treating the Constitution not as a wall but as terrain.
The specific intent is reassurance with a challenge baked in. He isn’t promising that the law is simple; he’s insisting it isn’t fate. “Insuperable” does heavy lifting: yes, there may be obstacles, but none that can’t be climbed with imagination, drafting skill, and institutional nerve. Coming from a judge (and a famously reform-minded legal actor), the subtext reads as an invitation to interpretive ambition: constitutions are living instruments in practice because courts, governments, and voters keep renegotiating their meaning.
Context matters because Murphy’s era was thick with reform battles - civil liberties, federal power, the scope of executive action - where opponents routinely framed change as constitutionally impossible. His phrasing counters that rhetorical weapon. It’s also a warning shot at legalism as performance: the problem isn’t the Constitution; it’s the lack of will to test its capacities. In seven words, Murphy makes constitutional law sound like what it often is: not a dead stop, but a contest.
The specific intent is reassurance with a challenge baked in. He isn’t promising that the law is simple; he’s insisting it isn’t fate. “Insuperable” does heavy lifting: yes, there may be obstacles, but none that can’t be climbed with imagination, drafting skill, and institutional nerve. Coming from a judge (and a famously reform-minded legal actor), the subtext reads as an invitation to interpretive ambition: constitutions are living instruments in practice because courts, governments, and voters keep renegotiating their meaning.
Context matters because Murphy’s era was thick with reform battles - civil liberties, federal power, the scope of executive action - where opponents routinely framed change as constitutionally impossible. His phrasing counters that rhetorical weapon. It’s also a warning shot at legalism as performance: the problem isn’t the Constitution; it’s the lack of will to test its capacities. In seven words, Murphy makes constitutional law sound like what it often is: not a dead stop, but a contest.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
|---|
More Quotes by Lionel
Add to List
