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What is the basis for the Rule of Law?

What is required to maintain a system of Law

  • The strength to force compliance

    Votes: 1 5.9%

  • Values and principles that provide legitimacy

    Votes: 7 41.2%

  • Some combination of 1 and 2

    Votes: 6 35.3%

  • Other

    Votes: 3 17.6%
  • Total voters
    17
With out ethics there is no fair system of law.


Officer of the court


n. any person who has an obligation to promote justice and effective operation of the judicial system, including judges, the attorneys who appear in court, bailiffs, clerks, and other personnel. As officers of the court lawyers have an absolute ethical duty to tell judges the truth, including avoiding dishonesty or evasion about reasons the attorney or his/her client is not appearing, the location of documents and other matters related to conduct of the courts.


Officer of the court legal definition of officer of the court
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
I am asking about something more fundamental.

Our species has always lived in groups and and these groups established a system of values or rules that dictated an individual’s place in the group. Ethical codes, code of laws, tribal differences, social and cultural values, all of these have been created created to help human societies organize itself.

If a code of law is to effective, it has to be recognized as legitimate by human society. What is the basis of that legitimacy? Does the law become legitimate according to the principle of “might makes right”? Or does the law have to uphold and represent specific ethical principles and values in order to be recognized as legitimate?
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Ah. Well, that is a bit different from the traditional definition of "rule of law." Certainly, all societies have laws and rules that they expect people living within their orbit to follow. That is true whether you are talking about the United States or the Islamic State. But that is somewhat removed from rule of law, which is the government not engaging in the arbitrary exercise of power by following defined limits on the extent of its power.

I would say rule of law is based, fundamentally, on the value of trust within the polity between the government and the governed. The people trust the government not abuse them and will follow the rules constraining its own power, and the government trust the people not to abuse their liberties and follow the rules constraining the limits of their individual action.
 
OldFatGuy said:
Nice words. The question is who decides what best represents the best interests for which people? The Pharaohs and Emperors of Japan were living gods. They decided what was in the best interest of .....?
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The emperors of Japan and pharaohs of Egypt could only rule if they were considered legitimate. Weak emperors and pharaohs ended up becoming the puppets of other people, having their authority undermined and opposed, and ultimately being murdered by their opponents and rivals. Governments that depend on strength to maintain legitimacy are fundamentally weak.

Government by consent requires government to represent the interests of the people who consented to being governed.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Technically the PRC has a constitution that is the supreme law of the land. The problem is the courts there are not the arbiters of it. That is done in a committee of the People's Congress.

https://www.wipo.int/edocs/lexdocs/laws/en/cn/cn147en.pdf
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Well, certainly. But therein lies the problem. A country could have the most beautiful constitution supposedly protecting the rights of citizens, but that does not matter if the government refuses to follow it or constrain the exercise of its own power. The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin drafted and ratified a constitution that protected the rights of individuals. And it self-evidently was not worth the paper it was written on, as the Terror followed shortly thereafter.

Most despotic regimes have similar constitutions to those of the Soviet Unions, but none have rule of law, because these governments refuse to place restrictions upon themselves.
 
Felis Leo said:
Well, certainly. But therein lies the problem. A country could have the most beautiful constitution supposedly protecting the rights of citizens, but that does not matter if the government refuses to follow it or constrain the exercise of its own power. The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin drafted and ratified a constitution that protected the rights of individuals. And it self-evidently was not worth the paper it was written on, as the Terror followed shortly thereafter.
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But isn’t that a problem or fault of individual people and not of the government itself?
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
But isn’t that a problem or fault of individual people and not of the government itself?
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No, it would be the government. For example, if a police officer abuses you under the color of law but it turns out that it was completely arbitrary and illegal, but he gets away with it because your government refused to address it after you go through all the proper channels to make your grievance known, then it is an act of government, not just a "bad apple." And it would certainly be even worse if you then went to the press to complain loudly about the abuse, but you were then arrested under some nebulous code such as "inciting public disorder" for complaining about the police. The same applies to outright tyrannies where it is not simply abuse...the government can do what it wants to whomever it wants whenever it wants.
 
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Felis Leo said:
Well, certainly. But therein lies the problem. A country could have the most beautiful constitution supposedly protecting the rights of citizens, but that does not matter if the government refuses to follow it or constrain the exercise of its own power. The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin drafted and ratified a constitution that protected the rights of individuals. And it self-evidently was not worth the paper it was written on, as the Terror followed shortly thereafter.

Most despotic regimes have similar constitutions to those of the Soviet Unions, but none have rule of law, because these governments refuse to place restrictions upon themselves.
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On the upside, Kenya adopted arguably the most progressive constitution in the world, 2011, by public referendum. It's being realized in many ways but there are growing pains to come. It holds that parliamentary representation be proportional to gender. Male - female, things are going well. Parliament is not half female but there are many female senators representing constituencies across the nation. Guess what a developing country is not ready for? A definition of gender beyond that found as a euphemism on forms. We're not looking at proportional Lgbt representation anytime soon. But that conversation is beginning.
 
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Felis Leo said:
No, it would be the government. For example, if a police officer abuses you under the color of law but it turns out that it was completely arbitrary and illegal, but he gets away with it because your government refused to address it after you go through all the proper channels to make your grievance known, then it is an act of government, not just a "bad apple." And it would certainly be even worse if you then went to the press to complain loudly about the abuse, but you were then arrested under some nebulous code such as "inciting public disorder" for complaining about the police. The same applies to outright tyrannies where it is not simply abuse...the government can do what it wants to whomever it wants whenever it wants.
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Every government has a unwritten obligation to serve and represent the people’s interests. I would go one step further and say that government has a duty to serve the people.

One could argue that Stalin was able to shape the Soviet Union’s institutions of government to suit his will because there was no fundamental belief in the democratic principles of government amongst the people.
 
Since government corruption has been in effect as long as the government has existed, rule of law is a joke.
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
Here is a philosophical question: what is required for a nation to maintain a system based on the rule of law?

Is the rule of law maintained solely by forced compliance and the strength of the nation’s law enforcement agencies? In other words, does the legitimacy of the law depend on the nation’s ability to force compliance with the law?

Does a nation of law require a system of guiding principles and values as the basis for its system of law? Does a nation have to have a system of values and principles that are mutually recognized by the nation’s citizens and the nation’s leaders lead by example in order to create legitimacy in its system of laws?

Or does the law require other things for it to be considered legitimate?
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Other.

Rule of law depends on the people of that nation believing it's rule of law.

When they lose faith that the law rules, when they lose faith in the system, it starts to crumble.
 
d0gbreath said:
Since government corruption has been in effect as long as the government has existed, rule of law is a joke.
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According to Kevin Phillips, author and political strategist to Richard Nixon, the United States is a plutocracy in which there is a "fusion of money and government."

I believe on an individual scale, 'the rule of law' is followed, but not on a wider corporate level. Money buys influence, leverage, funds campaigns and bends the law for the affluent.
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
The emperors of Japan and pharaohs of Egypt could only rule if they were considered legitimate. Weak emperors and pharaohs ended up becoming the puppets of other people, having their authority undermined and opposed, and ultimately being murdered by their opponents and rivals. Governments that depend on strength to maintain legitimacy are fundamentally weak.

Government by consent requires government to represent the interests of the people who consented to being governed.
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Unfortunately, history teaches governance was all too often a question of might, not legitimacy. Attempting to ascribe modern concepts of democratic governance as a universal underlying force fails to address the realities of the past.
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
Here is a philosophical question: what is required for a nation to maintain a system based on the rule of law?

Is the rule of law maintained solely by forced compliance and the strength of the nation’s law enforcement agencies? In other words, does the legitimacy of the law depend on the nation’s ability to force compliance with the law?

Does a nation of law require a system of guiding principles and values as the basis for its system of law? Does a nation have to have a system of values and principles that are mutually recognized by the nation’s citizens and the nation’s leaders lead by example in order to create legitimacy in its system of laws?

Or does the law require other things for it to be considered legitimate?
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The answer is obviously both. You can't have a set of laws without enforcement. Otherwise, no one would pay attention to traffic laws unless they completely and totally believed "it's the right thing to do". Fear of law enforcement keep us in line.
Just look at some of the videos of traffic jams in India.

YouTube
 
Harshaw said:
This entire post is nonsense. Have a good day.
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I don't think enforcing the rule of law is nonsense.
Back in the days of Giuliani and Bloomberg, the law said people could be stopped on the street and frisked for concealed weapons. The murder/shooting/crime/ went down in neighborhoods known for high crime rates.
You think saving lives and reducing crime is nonsense? It's because the law was followed.
 
OldFatGuy said:
You are not history, but it is pleasurable finding the humor underlying your fragile ego.
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It's OK that you were caught being dishonest about the origins of the 'rule of law' and are unable to accept that fact.

It won't change the reality of you being wrong.

Yay!
 
jaypatriot said:
I don't think enforcing the rule of law is nonsense.
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I didn't say anything of the sort. I also don't know how you possibly got that.
 
aociswundumho said:
The rule of law is a myth. Even if the law is written down, it will still be subject to wildly different interpretations.
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BINGO! Many interpretations, many of them completely illogical and tyrannical.

When it come to the OP's question: What is required to maintain a system of Law? We must first decide between 'natural laws' which are immutable and unchanging, and all other types of human government which may institute "laws"-- which may be changed or ammended-- and which are not based on 'natural law'.

For example: in this country slavery was once legal and under the man made "laws" of our nation it was enforceable under the laws of the land. But only up until the point where our society finally accepted the fact that "life, liberty, and property" are NATURAL RIGHTS and as such slavery is inconsistent with that ideal and thus the natural law.

aociswundumho said:
Consider the way Diane Feinswine interprets the second amendment compared to the way Rand Paul interprets the exact same words. They have drastically different interpretations of the exact same words, and if laws can have wildly different interpretations depending on who is reading them, then the rule of law is a myth.
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This is because in regard to the 2nd Amendment Rand Paul is correctly seeing it as a natural law/right (immutable), while Feinstein sees it as something that which can be changed or evolved at will-- and at most merely a privilege which can be limited or denied.

Our founding fathers were wise enough to recognize the existence of natural rights. Our constitution does not grant us those rights, it acts to limit the government from denying us those rights.
 
Tanngrisnir said:
It's OK that you were caught being dishonest about the origins of the 'rule of law' and are unable to accept that fact.

It won't change the reality of you being wrong.

Yay!
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The only dishonest person here is you, neverendingly so.
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
Here is a philosophical question: what is required for a nation to maintain a system based on the rule of law?

Is the rule of law maintained solely by forced compliance and the strength of the nation’s law enforcement agencies? In other words, does the legitimacy of the law depend on the nation’s ability to force compliance with the law?

Does a nation of law require a system of guiding principles and values as the basis for its system of law? Does a nation have to have a system of values and principles that are mutually recognized by the nation’s citizens and the nation’s leaders lead by example in order to create legitimacy in its system of laws?

Or does the law require other things for it to be considered legitimate?
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1. It is the one thing we all share.

2. It sets the ground rules for a civil society.

But it seems we have a 2-tier justice system.

Leftists always seem to **** things up royally.

Why isn’t Hillary behind bars and a sailor who took a few photos of a nuclear submarine’s engine served time?

Scooter Libby served time... Comey, McCabe, and Clapper run free after lying under oath.
 
OldFatGuy said:
The only dishonest person here is you, neverendingly so.
Click to expand...

It's OK that you were caught being dishonest about the origins of the 'rule of law' and are unable to accept that fact.

It won't change the reality of you being wrong.

Yay!
 
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