Dr. Walter Williams says,
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCommentary.asp?Page=\Commentary\archive\200107\COM20010703b.html
Posters – Is this the proper definition of “Rule of Law”? Have we lost it? Does it matter? Is it a tragedy? Is there a way to fix it?
Well, as I rather constantly deal with the absence of the rule of law in trying to do business in MENA, let me give thsi a go. By the way, I would advise a visit to something like transparency international to get an idea of a more, how shall we say, universal and less partisan and peculiar set of definitions and standards.
Reasonable.
Depending on the meaning one gives to this, vague or libertarian. A good number of social democratic legislation in Europe might fail this test. Sorry, have to exclude this one as a ‘universal’ without further clarification.
Reasonable.
True.
Well this wording strikes me as fishy, rather along the lines of libertarian prop. If the meaning is that a law is applied equally to all concerned given its objectives then it seems fair
Again, I sense gerrymandering of the sense of the phrase. Official immunities have valid usages in a system where the rule of law obtains.
That is published? Sure.
What this means in reality I have no idea but it sounds like libertarian tripe.
As I suspected.
I roll my eyes.
If his standard is his own particular vision as defined in part above, I am afraid few specialists in the area of rule of law would having much inkling of what he means in truth either, unless they were conversant with lib think.
By any common usage, no.
By his standards no nation in existance ever had it, let alone lost it.
If you’re a liberatarian, I suppose, else no.
See above.
Yes, become acquainted with non-lib definitions of the term. Above all try to read less propaganda.
So he’s some kind of columnist? Is he the same “Walter E. Williams” as this guy? Radio, TV, books, articles, occasional sub for Rush Limbaugh?
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/speakers/wwilliams.asp
Um, what? I’m not a lawyer, but even I know that this is a vast oversimplication.
[ul]
[li]Yes, we have laws that apply only to particular Americans, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act. And the laws governing speed limits on interstate highways are only applicable to people driving cars. So what?[/li][li]Yes, we have laws that exempt public officials from their application. You can’t sue the Yellowstone park rangers just because a grizzly bear mauled you.[/li][li]All our laws are known in advance. Or does he think Congress puts all of its proposed legislation in the same filing cabinet in the basement behind the locked door guarded by a rabid leopard that the Hitchhiker’s Guide “hyperspace bypass” proposal was in?[/li][li]Yes, of course we have laws that “take action against” (read: punish) someone who has not acted aggressively towards another (I’m assuming he means “an innocent person”). Deadbeat dads who refuse to send the child support checks aren’t “acting aggressively”, but there are laws that punish them.[/li][/ul]
Collounsbury, your comments seem fair and reasonable to me. Dr. Williams appears to bave bitten off more than he can chew, in this article.
I was interested in your reference to the impact on business of different types of law in different places. Would you care to expand on some of your observations? Have you also observed how the rule of law impacts individuals?
december quoted Walter Williams:
Virtually impossible to find a single act of Congress that doesn’t violate this definition of the “Rule of Law”? How about the Federal budget? Congress has to pass that every year. Yeah, I can see how the Federal budget doesn’t apply to all Americans, exempts public officials, isn’t known about, and takes action against non-aggressors. :rolleyes:
Well, in the U.S.A., the criminal code is very good in one respect:
Basically every criminal law is codified and known in advance. And courts are not afraid to throw out cases where the law is “ex post facto.”
The second criterion doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. For example, a law against robbery envisions a certain outcome - that robbers will go to jail. I don’t see a problem, per se, with envisioning an outcome – it’s the outcome itself that should be judged.
With respect to the third criterion, I think we have a ways to go. Unfortunately, even laws that are general on their face are applied in an unequal fashion. For example, Massachusetts has a law that says if you get caught with an unregistered handgun, you go to jail for a year with no parole. Now, if a Kennedy were caught with such a weapon, would he really go to jail for a year? Of course not. And I wouldn’t want him to, because it’s an overly harsh law. But if laws like that truly had to be applied equally, I think they would be reformed to something more sensible.
So, I would say that the U.S. doesn’t have “rule of law” to the extent I would like, but we’re pretty good, and better than a lot of countries where the elite can literally get away with murder.
december,
There is a fundamental tension in the laws, between general applicability and discretion.
No one would argue (I think) against the principle of “one law for all people”. However, few would argue against the principle of “take into account the circumstances when applying the law.” But the result is that the same events get disparate treatment. This is most obvious in criminal law where, to oversimplify, if you kill someone because you are righteously pissed, you get a lesser punishment than if you killed someone dispassionately.
And, of course, the principle of discretion is easily abused. As lucwarm pointed out, a Kennedy in Massachusetts would probably be treated better than Joe Six-Pack. This abuse leads to a balancing test - which is worse, no discretion or the fear of elitism infecting discretion.
Sua