Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied

Justice delayed is justice denied" is a legal maxim meaning that if legal redress is available for a party that has suffered some injury, but is not forthcoming in a timely fashion, it is effectively the same as having no redress at all. This principle is the basis for the right to a speedy trial and similar rights which are meant to expedite the legal system, because it is unfair for the injured party to have to sustain the injury with little hope for resolution. The phrase has become a rallying cry for legal reformers who view courts or governments as acting too slowly in resolving legal issues either because the existing system is too complex or overburdened, or because the issue or party in question lacks political favour.
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Origin[edit]
ccording to Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations, it is attributable to William Ewart Gladstone, but such attribution was not verifiable.[1] Alternatively, it may be attributed to William Penn, although not in its current form.     Martin Luther King, Jr., used the phrase in the form "justice too long delayed is justice denied" in his "Letter from Birmingham Jail", smuggled out of jail in 1963, ascribing it to "one of our distinguisheIt means that if justice is not carried out right away, then even if it is carried out later it is not really justice because there was a period of time when there was a lack of justiced jurists".      
| Justice is something meant to be handled at the present moment. This is so because, like Martin Luther King said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. |