Citations:palm tree justice


 * 1887, Hansard's parliamentary debates, Volume 320, p. 1202:
 * Magistrates in Ireland have no right to dispense what has been significantly called "palm-tree justice."


 * 2000, House of Lords Debates, 28 September 2000, column 986, Lord Simon of Glaisdale: "If an attempt is made to deal separately with every hard case that it throws up, there would be no rule of law at all. There would be palm-tree justice and a lurching from one case to another, so that the citizen would not know under what law he stood."


 * 2008, Revenue and Customs Comrs v Total Network SL[2008] UKHL 19, para. 202: "However, simply to invoke the doctrine that 'fraud unravels everything' would seem to me to involve palm tree justice. In other words, one would be relying on a general sense of morality or indignation, without regard to principle or the rule of law. Such a course would be inconsistent with principle, especially in the context of a taxing statute, and would effectively represent carte blanche for any tribunal to do what it likes."