Lapse of time does not bar the commonwealth.

Explanation

(English-origin maxim.) Under the monarchy, this meant the Crown's claims were never barred by delay. In the American system, the People are the sovereign — their reserved rights are not extinguished by the passage of time, and no government actor may claim that the People waited too long to assert a right that was never surrendered.

Where this applies

• A family discovers that the state never collected property taxes on their parcel for forty years due to a clerical error — the state's right to collect what is owed is not extinguished just because decades passed before anyone noticed.
• A citizen challenges a local ordinance that has violated the Bill of Rights for sixty years, and the city argues it is too late to object — the People's reserved rights are never barred by the passage of time, because those rights were never surrendered.
• A state attempts to reclaim public trust land that a private party has occupied without title for three generations — the commonwealth's claim to land held in trust for the People persists regardless of how long it went unasserted.