The rigor or height of law is the height of wrong.

Explanation

(English-origin maxim.) The overly strict application of legal rules can itself become a form of injustice — courts must temper rigor with equity to prevent the law from defeating its own purpose.

Where this applies

• A court enforces the exact letter of a statute to evict an 80-year-old widow from her home of fifty years over a minor paperwork technicality — the rigid application of the law becomes itself the greatest injustice.
• A judge sentences a first-time offender to the maximum mandatory minimum for possessing a trivial amount of a controlled substance, with no discretion to consider circumstances — the height of legal rigor produces a result that offends basic fairness.
• A city forecloses on a family's home for a $200 unpaid fine, following every procedural step to the letter while ignoring the gross disproportion between the debt and the loss — the strict enforcement of the rule becomes the very wrong the law was meant to prevent.