The Concept of the Rule-of-Law State in Carl Schmitt’s Verfassungslehre

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Dyzenhaus
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Political Power ◽  
The Political ◽  
Constitutional Theory ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Liberal Tradition ◽  
Oral Argument ◽  
The Law

This chapter focuses on Schmitt’s critique of the rule of law in his Constitutional Theory. Schmitt argues that liberalism, which once tied the rule of law to the protection of individual liberty, has deteriorated into an account in which any valid law is considered legitimate just because it is valid. This critique is driven by Schmitt’s conception of politics, and, as his oral argument in a crucial constitutional case of 1932 illustrates, his position affirms that law cannot be more than a mere instrument of political power and that it can stabilize politics only if the political power is exercised to bring about a substantive homogeneity in the population subject to the law. In conclusion, it is suggested that Schmitt points to genuine weaknesses in the liberal tradition that require an elaboration of a secular conception of authority in which principles of legality play a central role.

scholarly journals Między polityką a prawem. Problem „upolitycznienia” tworzenia prawa

2017 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 115-132
Author(s):  
Tadeusz Biernat
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Political Power ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Law ◽  
Politics And Law ◽  
Law Making

BETWEEN POLITICS AND LAW. THE PROBLEM OF “POLITICIZATION” THE CREATION OF LAWThe purpose of this article is to analyze the phenomenon of “politicization” of the law making process. Astrong form of politicization is the political instrumentalization of law when the law is treated as the implementation of particular interests of the political power; when is created in violation of the legality of the law-making activities; when it violates the rights of individuals human rights. The weaker but more common form of politicization the creation of law is related to the violation by apolitical authority, legislative body, additional restrictions imposed on it, which are supposed to guarantee ahigh level quality of the law. Three of the most characteristic limitations will be the basis for analyzing the phenomenon of politicization of law making. They are related to: the legitimization of law-making, the democratization of law-making process, and the standards of legislation that are characteristic of lawmaking in ademocratic state under the rule of law. To some extent, these phenomena are interconnected, one can say that they are involved in shaping the pat­tern of the proper legislation by preventing or reducing the politicization of the lawmaking process and its key decisions.

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.

scholarly journals The Destruction of Legal Reason: Lessons from the Past

2019 ◽  
Vol 89 ◽  
pp. 15-30
Author(s):  
Cosmin Cercel
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Constitutional Theory ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
Legal Reason ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The Past ◽  
Law And Politics ◽  
Contemporary Situation ◽  
The Law

The legal predicament of today in Europe and beyond takes the form of a devaluation of the meaning of legality, constitutionality and, of the rule of law. What we are dealing with is yet another crisis of both the tradition of the Rechtsstaat in continental setting and, more broadly, of liberal legality. While this disruption within the sphere of the law seems to mirror the reshuffling in established politics that took place over the last twenty years, it traces back to central jurisprudential questions that have made the substance of crucial debates during the interwar and have fashioned both the field of constitutional theory of the continent and our jurisprudential apparatus for approaching the nexus between law and politics. In this article I argue that the apparent uchronia that the current status of the law opens in relation to past theoretical questions that were seeking to ground legality, is neither a simple by-product of a Zeigeist oversaturated by appeals to procedural democracy or for returns to sovereign power, nor a mere regression to past juridico-political settings. It is a historical development that has been dormant for the past decades, yet has slowly undermined legal thought and praxis. Revisiting, as a matter of historical and jurisprudential inquiry, the context and the content of this original opposition between liberal legality and its enemy, is a way of understanding what constructs our own contemporary situation.

The Spirit of Israel Law

1974 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 456-462
Author(s):  
Haim H. Cohn
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
General Trend ◽  
A Priori ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Legal Traditions ◽  
Political Motivation ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Law

It may appear unduly pretentious to speak of the Spirit of the Law of a State which just completed but 25 years of independent legislative and judicial life. States with legislative and judicial records of hundreds of years may find it difficult, and perhaps also rather unprofitable, to delve into speculations of the Spirit behind their laws. In most cases, the general trend and the political motivation of the creation and the administration of law are anyhow known beforehand and well defined a priori—be it the realization of democracy by the rule of law, be it the implementation of socialism or communism, or the self-assertion of a fascist or communist dictatorship. Add to such trends and motivations the national legal traditions which a State inherited and consciously or unconsciously continues to maintain—and you will obtain, for what it may be worth or useful, a fair overall picture of the “Spirit”.of its laws.

Judicial Deference in Foreign Relations

1989 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. 805-813 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan I. Charney
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The Law

Disputes with foreign policy implications have often been brought to the federal courts. These cases call attention to the tension between the authority of the political branches to conduct the foreign relations of the United States and the authority of the courts to render judgments according to the law. How this tension is resolved, in turn, bears directly on the commitment of the United States to the rule of law.

scholarly journals The slow and hidden road to serfdom

2021 ◽  
pp. 201-237
Author(s):  
Peter Bernholz
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Alexis De Tocqueville ◽  
Individual Freedom ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
General Rules ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Right ◽  
Discretionary Powers

Without the rule of law limiting the discretionary powers of government agencies, but also of other organizations and in-dividuals no individual freedom is possible. If government re-presentatives or private persons can order at their discretion individuals to behave in certain ways, no individual liberty is guaranteed. As Immanuel Kant expressed it «man is free if he needs to obey no person but solely the law.» And even if indi-viduals are only obliged to follow the law, their freedom is al-ways threatened if these laws can be changed arbitrarily by any individuals or government authorities. This is even true for de-mocracies in which duly elected parliamentary majorities (that is minorities) are allowed to introduce new laws or change old ones relating to any sphere of human activities. The problem has been clearly stated by Alexis de Tocqueville (1945, vol. I, p.270): When I see that the right and the means of absolute command are conferred on any power whatever, be it called a people or a king, an aristocracy or a democracy, a monarchy or a republic, I say there is the germ of tyranny, and I seek to live elsewhere, under other laws. Similar ideas are expressed by Friedrich v. Hayek (1944, p. 62): The Rule of Law thus implies limits to the scope of legislation: it restricts it to the kind of general rules known as formal law, and excludes legislation either directly aimed at particular people, or at enabling anybody to use the coercive power of the state for the purpose of such discrimination.

Entrapment, Prerogative Power, and the Rule of Law

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luke William Hunt
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Decision Procedure ◽  
Discretionary Power ◽  
Subjective Test ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Counterfactual Conditionals ◽  
Liberal Tradition ◽  
Emergency Powers ◽  
The Law

Chapter 5 first argues that the subjective test for entrapment is a theoretically and practically untenable method of evaluating sting operations: the test is based upon a decision procedure that gives rise to questions about the metaphysics of counterfactual conditionals, which raise more pressing epistemological, ethical, and political problems. Accordingly, the second goal of this chapter is to examine the limits of sting operations more broadly. This is done by examining the extent to which the police are justified in using discretionary power to break what would otherwise be the law. The chapter concludes by setting forth a theory regarding the limits of such powers—limits that correspond to the limits of executive national security emergency powers in the liberal tradition. The upshot is that any theory of entrapment and sting operations must exist within the broader constraints upon the police’s power to break the law.

Playing Fair

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Dagger
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Political Obligation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Fair Play ◽  
Fair Share ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
General Obligation ◽  
Cooperative Enterprise ◽  
The Law

Is there a general obligation to obey the laws of a reasonably just polity? Is there any justification for imposing suffering, in the form of punishment, on those who break the law? Political and legal philosophers have long debated these vexing questions, but the debates typically have taken up each question in isolation. Playing Fair, however, treats the two questions as intertwined and provides affirmative answers to both—answers grounded, in both cases, in the principle of fair play. According to this principle, those who are engaged in a mutually beneficial cooperative practice or enterprise have a duty to the cooperating participants to bear a fair share of the burdens of the practice. Applied to the political order, the principle holds that a reasonably just polity is a cooperative enterprise whose members receive benefits from the rule of law only because other members obey the law even when they find obedience burdensome. The members of a reasonably just polity thus have a political obligation, understood as a defeasible moral duty to obey the law, to one another. Those who break the laws fail to fulfill this obligation, and their failure justifies the law-abiding members, acting through the proper authorities, in punishing the lawbreakers. Rather than two separate problems, then, political obligation and punishment are two aspects of the same fundamental concern for sustaining a polity that its members can reasonably regard as a cooperative enterprise under the rule of law.

The Limits of Positivist Legal Ethics: A Brief History, a Critique, and a Return to Foundations

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 443-465 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Bradley Wendel
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
Legal Ethics ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Positive Law ◽  
The Law ◽  
Anglo American

The “positivist turn” in legal ethics has found many scholars in the Anglo-American common-law world relating the duties of lawyers to the rights and duties assigned by the law to their clients. On this view, the role of lawyers should be understood as contributing to the law’s function of resolving conflict and establishing a framework for cooperation in a pluralist society. Critics of positivist legal ethics have suggested that it is impossible for lawyers to avoid resorting to moral considerations when representing clients. These critics claim that the guidance provided by law runs out at critical moments, leaving a lawyer no choice but to fall back on the moral considerations supposedly pre-empted by positive law. In particular they argue that the law cannot determine its own application, and normative questions remain regarding the interpretive attitude lawyers ought to take when representing clients. This paper responds to critics of positivist legal ethics by returning to foundations, specifically the values underpinning the rule of law as a practice of giving reasons based on norms established in the name of the political community.

Defining the Nature and Limits of Presidential Powers in the Transitional Constitution of South Sudan: A Politically Contentious Matter for the New Nation

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A W Deng
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Political Power ◽  
South Sudan ◽  
The Political ◽  
Federal System ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
New Nation ◽  
Democratic Constitution

AbstractThis article reflects on the Transitional Constitution of South Sudan and the political tumult in which it has landed the country. In particular, it looks at the contentious provisions of article 101(r) and (s) of the constitution, which give the president powers to remove an elected state governor and appoint a new governor, upon the occurrence of a crisis whose nature is undefined in the constitution and remains intellectually inconceivable. The article argues that these provisions concentrate political power in the hands of president, to the extent that they undermine the development and maintenance of democracy and the rule of law in the country. In conclusion, it argues for the adoption of a democratic constitution and a federal system of government as the solution to the concentration of political power in Juba.

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