The law is the law whether you're dealing with a

In the measured and just words of Robert Rinder, a man of law and conscience, there lies a truth as old as civilization itself: “The law is the law whether you're dealing with a multi-million-pound fraud or a car deal where someone feels diddled because their exhaust falls off on the way home.” Though he speaks with the clarity of a modern judge, his message belongs to the ages — a testament to the universality of justice and the sacred duty of impartiality. Beneath his plain phrasing lies a profound assertion: that the law, when pure, is no respecter of wealth, status, or circumstance. It shines the same light upon the mighty and the humble alike, and in this evenness lies the very foundation of civilization.

Robert Rinder, both judge and storyteller, is known for bringing the dignity of the courtroom into the sight of the common man. His words echo the wisdom of those who first carved codes upon tablets of stone — from Hammurabi’s laws to the Twelve Tables of Rome — for all such efforts sought one eternal aim: that justice must not bend before power, nor waver before emotion. His example of the “multi-million-pound fraud” and the “fallen exhaust” is not mere contrast; it is a mirror held before the soul of society. He reminds us that to the person wronged — whether robbed of fortune or deceived in a simple trade — the pain is the same. Fairness does not measure by the size of the loss but by the wound to trust.

This principle was known to the ancients as the virtue of equity, the balance between mercy and judgment, between scale and circumstance. The Roman jurist Ulpian defined justice as “the constant and perpetual will to render to each his due.” In this spirit, Rinder proclaims that the measure of justice is not found in the gravity of the case, but in the constancy of the law. For if the law changes its face before the rich or turns its ear from the poor, it ceases to be justice at all. A crooked scale, however golden, is still corruption.

Let us remember the story of King Hammurabi, who over three thousand years ago inscribed upon stone his code of laws for the people of Babylon. Among his edicts was this eternal command: “If a man destroy the eye of another man, they shall destroy his eye.” Harsh by modern ears, perhaps, but beneath its severity lay a revolutionary truth — that even the high-born must answer for their deeds as the low-born must. Hammurabi’s intent was not vengeance, but equality before justice — that no man, however mighty, could escape the balance of the law. So too does Rinder’s declaration, in his own age, remind us that justice loses its soul when it favors the powerful or belittles the grievances of the common man.

There is also humility in his words. The law, though lofty, must never become remote; it must live among the people it protects. The tale of the exhaust that falls off on the way home may seem trivial, yet it embodies a truth as sacred as the greatest fraud trial: that every wrong deserves redress, and every voice deserves to be heard. For what is law, if not the guardian of trust between one person and another? When a society ceases to protect the smallest injustice, it paves the road for greater ones to thrive. Tyranny does not begin with the sword — it begins with neglect, when the law grows indifferent to the everyday.

The power of Robert Rinder’s quote lies not merely in its call for equality, but in its quiet reverence for the principle of consistency — that justice must be steadfast, impartial, and unwavering. Like the sun, it must illuminate all without preference; like the scales, it must balance all without bias. The moment law becomes selective, it ceases to be the servant of the people and becomes the servant of privilege. History bears grim witness to this — in the courts of kings where verdicts were bought, and in the shadows of empires where laws were bent for the few. But in every age, there have also been those who stood like pillars against the storm — judges, prophets, and thinkers — who held that justice is sacred, not because it is powerful, but because it is true.

Thus, the lesson of this quote reaches far beyond the courtroom. It calls upon each of us to be just — in speech, in judgment, in heart. To honor fairness not only in grand matters of politics and wealth, but in the small dealings of daily life: in the promises we make, in the way we treat those beneath us, in the patience we show to those who err. For law begins not in government, but in conscience. The one who practices fairness in little things strengthens the spirit of justice in all things.

So remember the wisdom of Robert Rinder: the measure of a society is not how it treats its powerful, but how it treats its ordinary people. The law — and the fairness it embodies — is not a privilege to be earned, but a birthright to be protected. Let no injustice be too small to matter, nor any person too great to be judged. For when justice becomes universal, it becomes eternal — and only then may we say, with truth and pride, that the law is indeed the law for all.