Law and Political Philosophy

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Damgaard Thaysen
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
The State ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The Public ◽  
Legal Coercion ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Law ◽  
Public Wrong

Modern states pursue most of their (domestic) ends by creating law and acting in accordance with the law they create. Moreover, many believe states ought to pursue most of their ends this way. If a state ought to do something, then chances are it ought to do it by creating, abolishing, changing, upholding, or enforcing some law. Therefore, almost any kind of political philosophy with bearing on what states should do has bearing on what law should be like. Justifying the legal proscription of some conduct involves more than just showing that citizens ought to refrain from that conduct. Legally restricting conduct is an exercise of coercion and must be justified as such. Criminal prohibitions in particular require special justification, as they are not only coercive but also commit the state to deliberately inflict the harm and stigma of punishment on some of its own citizens. Nevertheless, if the state must coerce its citizens, it ought generally to do so through a law that conforms to the rule of law. Law conforms to the rule of law if it is capable of guiding the citizens as they act and plan for the future. This the law can do only if it is open, clear, prospective, and stable, such that citizens can know what it demands now and predict with reasonable certainty what it will demand in the future. Conformity to the rule of law promotes freedom and is required to respect human dignity. Much of the debate about the justification and scope of legal coercion revolves around several principles that advance claims about what considerations are relevant to the justifiability of law. These principles all have the following structure: The fact that a legal restriction of a certain kind is related in a certain way to a certain type of conduct has a certain impact on whether that restriction is justifiable. Common principles include (a) legal moralism, according to which it is always a good reason to criminalize conduct that the conduct is wrongful; (b) the wrongness constraint, according to which criminalizing morally permissible conduct is never justified; (c) liberalism, according to which it is always a good reason to criminalize conduct that the conduct is either harmful or seriously offensive to others, and criminalizing conduct that is neither harmful nor offensive is never justified; (d) the public wrong principle, according to which it is always a good reason to criminalize conduct that the conduct is a public wrong, and criminalizing conduct is never justified unless the conduct is a public wrong; (e) the sovereignty principle, according to which the only legitimate restrictions on conduct are those that secure independence. Which, if any, of these principles one should accept is the subject of an extensive and sophisticated academic debate.

19. Police powers

2021 ◽  
pp. 460-484
Author(s):  
Anne Dennett
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Public Order ◽  
Public Power ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The Public ◽  
Police Powers ◽  
Codes Of Practice ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Relationship

This concluding chapter studies police powers. It is the function of the police to keep the public secure by preventing and detecting crime, and maintaining public order. This involves the exercise of public power and powerfully engages the relationship between the citizen and the state. There are clear links between police powers and the rule of law: it is imperative that police powers are not used in a random, arbitrary way; are clear, foreseeable, and accessible; are not unlimited; and are in accordance with the law. Police powers are mostly statute-based, the most significant of which is the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) which was enacted to achieve a balance between protecting citizens’ rights and effective police powers. Under section 66, the Home Secretary issues detailed Codes of Practice regulating the exercise of police powers and providing clear guidelines for the police and safeguards for the public.

The Rule, the Law, and the Rule of Law in Achebe’s Novels of Colonization

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-51
Author(s):  
Neil ten Kortenaar
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Gift Economy ◽  
The Law ◽  
Things Fall Apart

Achebe’s two novels of colonization,Things Fall ApartandArrow of God, one written just before and one just after independence, both begin with the threat of war between village groups. In the first, war is averted by the groups themselves, negotiating compensation on the basis of reciprocity. In the second, war is not avoided and leads directly to intervention by the British, who assert a monopoly on violence and justify it on the basis of the desirability of the rule of law that they impose. I read Achebe’s novels not as historical narratives but as parables of political philosophy. Reciprocity (the basis of vengeance but also of a gift economy) is opposed to the law (imposed by a sovereign and legitimized by its disinterested arbitration). The interest that Achebe expressed in models like reciprocity, which do without the state, disappeared after independence, when Nigerians had their own state. Nevertheless, both novels express a deep ambivalence about the law and the violence required to impose it.

19. Police powers

2019 ◽  
pp. 437-456
Author(s):  
Anne Dennett
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Public Order ◽  
Public Power ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The Public ◽  
Police Powers ◽  
Codes Of Practice ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Relationship

This concluding chapter studies police powers. It is the function of the police to keep the public secure by preventing and detecting crime, and maintaining public order. This involves the exercise of public power and powerfully engages the relationship between the citizen and the state. There are clear links between police powers and the rule of law: it is imperative that police powers are not used in a random, arbitrary way; are clear, foreseeable, and accessible; are not unlimited; and are in accordance with the law. Police powers are mostly statute-based, the most significant of which is the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) which was enacted to achieve a balance between protecting citizens' rights and effective police powers. Under section 66, the Home Secretary issues detailed Codes of Practice regulating the exercise of police powers and providing clear guidelines for the police and safeguards for the public.

LEGAL ESSENCE OF ANCIENT PROVERBS AND SAYS AND THEIR SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Dranishnikova ◽  
Ivan Semenov
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Social Significance ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The Public ◽  
Moral Standards ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Status Position

The national legal system is determined by traditional elements characterizing the culture and customs that exist in the social environment in the form of moral standards and the law. However, the attitude of the population to the letter of the law, as a rule, initially contains negative properties in order to preserve personal freedom, status, position. Therefore, to solve pressing problems of rooting in the minds of society of the elementary foundations of the initial order, and then the rule of law in the public sphere, proverbs and sayings were developed that in essence contained legal educational criteria.

scholarly journals RETURNS OF ASSETS IN CORRUPTION CRIMINAL ACTS AS ALTERNATIVE RESTORING STATE LOSSES

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-34
Author(s):  
Komang Ekayana
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Criminal Procedure ◽  
The State ◽  
Recovery Model ◽  
Formal Approach ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Asset Recovery ◽  
Criminal Procedure Law ◽  
The Law

Corrupted state assets certainly hurt the country narrowly, but also broadly where it harms the country and its people. However, the formal approach through the current criminal procedure law has not been able to recover the losses suffered by the state. In fact, state losses resulting from corruption are state assets that must be saved. Then there needs to be a new breakthrough to recover state losses through the asset recovery model. When looking at the country from the perspective of the victims, the state must obtain protection, in this case recovery from the losses suffered due to corruption. This paper examines the model of returning assets resulting from corruption in the law enforcement process that focuses on the rule of law in the 2003 UNCAC Convention and the mechanism of returning state assets in terms of Law No. 20 of 2001 concerning amendments to Law No. 31 of 1999 concerning Eradication of Corruption Crimes. 

scholarly journals Applied aspects of accounting the principle of the rule of law in system analysis and simulation of the state system of Ukraine

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 ◽  
pp. 14-18
Author(s):  
V.F. Obolentsev
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Systems Engineering ◽  
System Analysis ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
System Engineering ◽  
The State ◽  
State System ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Stage Of Development ◽  
The Law

The rule of law is a fundamental principle of the legal sphere. Its assertion in the state institutions of democratic countries is an outstanding achievement of mankind. The implementation of this principle is the basis of civil society and civil liberties. The rule of law is the supremacy of law in society. The rule of law provides for its implementation in law-making and law enforcement activities. The manifestation of the rule of law is that the law is not limited to legislation as one of its forms, but also includes other social regulators (norms of morality, traditions, customs, etc., which are legitimized by society). All these elements of law are united by a quality that corresponds to ideology of justice – the idea of law, which is largely implemented in the Constitution of Ukraine. The first problem for the implementation of the principle of law in Ukraine is that this principle has not yet received the proper normative consolidation and official interpretation. The second problem is its extension to socio-economic rights and social benefits. The third problem is the insufficient level of legality in our state. The aim of the paper is to establish the peculiarities of implementation of the principle of the rule of law at the present stage of development of scientific and technological progress. The task of the paper is to investigate the peculiarities of implementation of the rule of law in the application of information and analytical technologies of system engineering in the legal sphere. In accordance with the experience of using information-analytical technologies of system engineering in the legal sphere, the paper outlines the peculiarities of implementation of the principle of the rule of law in the system analysis and modeling of the state system of Ukraine. The principle of the rule of law must be taken into account in such modeling as "governing circumstance". That is the resource according to which the state system of Ukraine functions. Our preliminary works give grounds to assert that information and analytical technologies of systems engineering are also a promising methodological tool for studying the principles of state building. The principle of the rule of law is the cornerstone of building a democratic state governed by the rule of law in Ukraine. Three years ago, scholars moved away from identifying the rule of law with the law-creating instruments.

scholarly journals Poaching of marine living resources: Can the tide be turned?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hendrik Van As
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Resource Management ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Organised Crime ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
The State ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The Future ◽  
Full Power ◽  
A Priority

Certain marine living resources of South Africa are under severe threat from international organised crime syndicates in conjunction with local fishers. These criminal activities erode respect for the rule of law and lead to socio-economic degradation and the proliferation of gangsterism. The current government approach as custodians of the resources is to maximise the return from confiscations. SAPS are not using the full power of the law to address poaching of marine living resources, particularly abalone, as a priority crime and do not allocate their resources commensurate with the value of the commodity. As a country that is beleaguered by fisheries crime, overfishing and exploitation, South Africa must take a tough stance and should pursue criminal organisations with all the power that the state can muster. It must also ensure that national fisheries resource management is improved so that local communities can benefit. The implementation of a conforming strategy would be socially and politically unpopular, but the future benefits will outweigh the outlay.

The State and the Rule of Law

1970 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-13
Author(s):  
Andrzej Zoll
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Political System ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The Law ◽  
Democratic Principles ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The One ◽  
Real Chance

The changes brought about in Poland and elsewhere in Europe by the fall of Communism have given rise to hopes for the establishment of a political system differing from the one which had been the fate of these countries. In place of totalitarianism, a new political system is to be created based on the democratic principles of a state under the rule of law. The transformation from totalitarianism to democracy is a process which has not yet been completed in Poland and still requires many efforts to be made before this goal may be achieved. One may also enumerate various pitfalls jeopardising this process even now. The dangers cannot be avoided if their sources and nature are not identified. Attempts to pervert the law and the political system may only be counteracted by legal means if the system based on the abuse of the law has not yet succeeded in establishing itself. Resistance by means of the law only has any real chance of success provided it is directed against attempts to set up a totalitarian system. Once the powers which are hostile to the state bound by the rule of law take over the institutions of the state, such resistance is doomed to failure.

The Rule of Law

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. W. Barber
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Successful Operation ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Law

The rule of law requires that law make the differences it purports to make; linking the formal demands of law and the reality of the rules that structure power within a community. The chapter begins by outlining the rule of law. There are two aspects to the principle: first, the rule of law requires that laws be expressed in a way that enable people to obey the law; secondly, the rule of law requires that the social context is such that people are led to obey these rules. The second part of the chapter examines the connection between the rule of law and the state. First, it will be contended that states need to comply—to a degree—with the rule of law in order to exist. Secondly, in societies such as ours, non-state legal orders require the existence of the state, and state legal orders, for their successful operation.

The Paradox of “Just War” in Rousseau's Theory of Interstate Relations

2015 ◽  
Vol 109 (2) ◽  
pp. 314-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
BLAISE BACHOFEN
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Just War ◽  
The State ◽  
Interstate Relations ◽  
Law Of War ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
External Relations ◽  
The Law ◽  
Utopian Theory

In theSocial Contract, Rousseau declares that he has given up the idea of discussing the “external relations” of states. Yet numerous texts—including a recently reconstituted work about the law of war—show that he thought very seriously about the question of the nature and origin of war and of the possibility of making war subject to the rule of law. Rousseau, in contrast to Hobbes, links war's appearance to that of the sovereign states; the state of war is therefore the necessary result of international relations. Moreover, he considers the international law as chimerical. How can he then conceive a non-utopian theory of “just war”? My hypothesis is that his conception of the law of war is deduced from principles of internal political law and arises from pragmatic necessity. The state that discredits itself in its manner of waging war weakens itself while believing that it is reinforcing itself.

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