The Rule of Law Perspectives From Around the Globe

Description: BOOK REVIEW

THE RULE OF LAW: Perspectives From Around the Globe

General Editor: Francis Neate

ISBN: 978 1 4057 3699 2

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A RULING ON OUR LAWS

An appreciation by Phillip Taylor MBE and Elizabeth Taylor of Richmond Green Chambers

The rule of law, as Francis Neate explains, has emerged prominently into public discussion and although it defies a precise definition, it’s of special interest to lawyers, and one to which they should perhaps pay more attention, he suggests.

As General Editor, Neate’s 270 page work in 27 chapters is a compilation of academic papers on the rule of law. These papers were delivered primarily at one of several international symposia by a number of distinguished contributors ranging from Lord Bingham and Lord Goldsmith to Valery Zorkin, the first and current Chairman of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation.

Other contributors include Mary Robinson, the former Irish President and Justice Albie Sachs, anti-apartheid campaigner appointed by Nelson Mandela in 1994 to serve on South Africa’s Constitutional Court.

Just reading their brief biographies in the introductory sections of this volume is an interesting exercise in itself to research our concept of the rule of law. The symposia were convened under the auspices of the International Bar Association (IBA) which has been at the forefront promulgating interest in and insights into, the rule of law worldwide.

Basically the rule of law refers to a system of law binding on all -- even kings -- and acts as a restraint on the powers of the mighty. The laws of Moses are a good example. It encompasses two fundamental principles, namely that those in power should not make the laws and all people (including those in power) should be bound by the laws.

The Rule of Law, said Aristotle in ‘The Politics’ is preferable to that of any individual.

Since Aristotle -- and Socrates and Plato a century before him -- the quest for justice under the law has been a recurrent one. The epic struggle to establish and apply the principles of the rule of law has taken place over more than two millennia.

The struggle, which still continues, has been advanced by certain pivotal events like Magna Carta in 1215, the Putney debates at the end of the English Civil war and the American Revolution, which as Neate says: represented a major turning point in the history of the relationship between government and the governed.

Dipping into the content of the book, one discovers any number of interesting gems. For example, check out the chilling reminder of how Hitler circumvented and abused the Rule of Law in Nazi Germany by the simple expedient of the Enabling Act, which was passed without the required two-thirds majority. Communist members, having been arrested, were prevented from voting. Remaining representatives were reminded of the persuasive power of the storm troopers.

The Enabling Act, as a device, meant that Hitler could enact legislation without Parliamentary ratification and therefore without any checks on his legislative power, which in these turbulent and unsettling times begins to sound vaguely familiar – especially the bit about parliamentarians being arrested.

How much legislation has been enacted in the UK during the last decade without parliamentary debate and almost unnoticed by the press or public? One can always dream up excuses for this disquieting situation, the most oft repeated being that debating various measures in parliament is so, well, tedious and time wasting. How easily are hard won liberties eroded in the