The Power of the People and the Rule of Law: The Problem of Constitutional Democracy in the Weimar Republic

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-141
Author(s):  
Tomasz Stępniewski

The present paper discusses the following research questions: to what extent did errors made by the previous presidents of Ukraine result in the country’s failure to introduce systemic reforms (e.g. combating corruption, the development of a foundation for a stable state under the rule of law and free-market economy)?; can it be ventured that the lack of radical reforms along with errors in the internal politics of Ukraine under Petro Poroshenko resulted in the president’s failure?; will the strong vote of confidence given to Volodymyr Zelensky and the Servant of the People party exact systemic reforms in Ukraine?; or will Volodymyr Zelensky merely become an element of the oligarchic political system in Ukraine?


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-100
Author(s):  
Andraž Teršek

Abstract The central objective of the post-socialist European countries which are also Member States of the EU and Council of Europe, as proclaimed and enshrined in their constitutions before their official independence, is the establishment of a democracy based on the rule of law and effective legal protection of fundamental human rights and freedoms. In this article the author explains what, in his opinion, is the main problem and why these goals are still not sufficiently achieved: the ruthless simplification of the understanding of the social function and functioning of constitutional courts, which is narrow, rigid and holistically focused primarily or exclusively on the question of whether the judges of these courts are “left or right” in purely daily-political sense, and consequently, whether constitutional court decisions are taken (described, understood) as either “left or right” in purely and shallow daily-party-political sense/manner. With nothing else between and no other foundation. The author describes such rhetoric, this kind of superficial labeling/marking, such an approach towards constitutional law-making as a matter of unbearable and unthinking simplicity, and introduces the term A Populist Monster. The reasons that have led to the problem of this kind of populism and its devastating effects on the quality and development of constitutional democracy and the rule of law are analyzed clearly and critically.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-190
Author(s):  
Moh Hudi

The Government system greatly determines the position and responsibility of the president. Even in the same system of government, the president’s position and responsibility may change, depending  on   The  Rule  of   Law  in a particular country. The position and responsibility of the president in the presidential system in Indonesia has change several times. This can be seen before and after the amandement. President in presidential   System   as  Head  of  Government  and   Head  of   State. So that the president has broad authority. The president is not responsible to the parliament, because institutionally the parliament is not higher than the president as the chief executive, but is responsible to the people as voters.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 408-419
Author(s):  
Ikhsan Fatah Yasin

Abstract: This article discusses the analysis of the prohibition of analogy in the Draft Bill. The majority of the experts of jurisprudence against analogy. The author does not agree with the ban on using the analogy in the Draft Bill, but justifies the analogy with the record, the judge must be competent and with integrity. If the judge is unable to make analogy, then he could use self-interpretation to find a legal decition. The argument of usage of analogy is to seek substantial justice for the people without setting aside the individual’s rights, because by using the analogy, the rule of law will remain unfulfilled. It is because the crime, in its various forms, is still contrary to morality even though it is not written, and even if the crime has an impact to the public. In Islamic law, the method of qiyâs compiled by Imam Shafi’i in may be used as a good analogy, because qiyâs method has been tested by producing many laws.Keywords: Analogy, draft bill, the criminal code. Abstrak: Artikel ini membahas tentang analisis terhadap larangan analogi dalam RUU KUHP. Mayoritas para ahli ilmu hukum menentang analogi. Penulis tidak sepakat dengan larangan menggunakan analogi dalam RUU KUHP, tetapi membenarkan analogi dengan catatan, hakimnya harus kompeten dan berintegritas. Jika hakimnya memang tidak mampu untuk beranalogi, maka ia masih bisa menggunakan interpretasi untuk menemukan hukumnya.   Argumen diperbolehkannya analogi adalah untuk mencari keadilan substansial bagi masyarakat tanpa menyampingkan perlindungan individu, sebab dengan menggunakan analogi kepastian hukum akan tetap terpenuhi. Karena kejahatan, dalam berbagai bentuknya, tetap saja bertentangan dengan kesusilaan meskipun ia tidak tertulis, apalagi jika kejahatan tersebut membawa pengaruh kepada masyarakat luas. Dalam hukum Islam, metode qiyâs yang disusun oleh Imam Syafi’i dalam berijtihad mungkin dapat digunakan sebagai proses analogi yang baik, sebab metode qiyâs ini sudah teruji dengan memproduksi banyak hukum. Kata Kunci: Analogi, Rancangan Perundang-undangan, KUHP.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-168
Author(s):  
Isaac O. C. Igwe

Although brutality can repress a society, it never assures the sustainability of that conquest. Tyranny steers the hopeless to despair, edges to rebellion, and could open the door for a new tyrant to rise. Law becomes a limiting factor that must act as a stopgap to the avaricious intentions of a dictator. A democratic leader must incorporate the supremacy of the law and honest officials into his government. He shall also create courts of law, treat the poorest citizens with fairness and build a hall of justice to bring the society to modernity with the operation of the rule of law enshrined in the constitution. Legislation is nothing without enforcement and Law is no law if not accepted and respected by the people. The rule of law cannot be said to be working in a country where the government continues to violate the orders of the court, unlawfully detain its citizens, abuse human rights including arbitrary and extra-judicial executions, unlawful arrests and detentions, embargo on freedom of speech and press, impunity and inhumane torture, degradation of people or exterminations. This treatise will argue on the supremacy of the “Rule of Law” as it impacts Nigerian democracy. Keywords: Rule of Law; Democracy; Judiciary; Supremacy; Government; Tyranny; Nigerian Constitution


2009 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan K. Ocko ◽  
David Gilmartin

This paper uses the concept of the “rule of law” to compare Qing China and British India. Rather than using the rule of law instrumentally, the paper embeds it in the histories of state power and sovereignty in China and India. Three themes, all framed by the rule of law and the rule of man as oppositional yet paradoxically intertwined notions, organize the paper's comparisons: the role of a discourse of law in simultaneously legitimizing and constraining the political authority of the state; the role of law and legal procedures in shaping and defining society; and the role of law in defining an economic and social order based on contract, property, and rights. A fourth section considers the implications of these findings for the historical trajectories of China and India in the twentieth century. Taking law as an instrument of power and an imagined realm that nonetheless also transcended power and operated outside its ambit, the paper seeks to broaden the history of the “rule of law” beyond Euro-America.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Opačić ◽  
◽  
Vladimir Vrhovšek ◽  
◽  

We, as the authors of this text, have found it important to point out the close connection between law and justice, theory and practice, because citizens go to court for justice. The judge says what justice is. However, when the legal norm is available and well known to the persons, to whom it refers, and when it is predictable and the case law is uniform, the persons to whom the legal norm refers, can know their rights and obligations concretely, and thus know how to treat them. In order to that they must behave and anticipate the consequences of their behavior. When all the above has been fulfilled, it can be said that the requirements of the rule of law and legal security have been met, so it can be freely said that law and justice are at the "service of the people", through theory and practice. It should be reminded that the precision of the legal norm is one of the basic elements of the rule of law and is a key factor for the emergence and maintenance of the legitimacy of the legal order, which applies to all branches of law, and that court decisions are binding on all.


Worldview ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 5-12
Author(s):  
D. L. Robinson

The year 1972 seemed fateful to those who cherish the commitment of American democracy to the tradition of checks and balances. Indeed, as the year ended, the realization was beginning to dawn that the nation was on the edge of a full-scale constitutional crisis.Nineteen seventy-two was the year when President Nixon reopened the door to China, then mined Haiphong harbor and bombed the city of Hanoi; when he visited Moscow, concluded a treaty limiting strategic arms and directed Henry Kissinger to announce that peace was "at hand," then suddenly renewed and intensified the bombing, suspended it for thirtysix hours at Christmas, renewed it, then stopped it again—all without explanation to the people on whose behalf he was acting.


Author(s):  
Marc de Wilde

AbstractThe article analyzes the debate on 'constitutional dictatorship' that took place at the first annual conference of the Association of German Constitutional Lawyers in Jena in 1924. In their keynote lectures, Carl Schmitt and Erwin Jacobi argued that Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution authorized the President of the Reich to derogate from the rule-of-law provisions of the constitution if this was necessary to save its 'political substance'. Advocating a 'doctrine of derogation', they implicitly criticized one of the main methodological assumptions of legal positivism, i.e., that legal norms and politics, law and power, had to remain strictly separated. They thereby set the stage for the emerging 'conflict of methods and directions' that was to haunt German jurisprudence in subsequent years.


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