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The Rule of Law, Freedom, and Democracy
A totally undeveloped thought, written down lest I forget to work on it.
Freedom and democracy form a tense relationship. Isonomia, equality before the law – that precursor and beginning of the rule of law – gives rise to a desire to further strengthen this firewall against tyrannical domination: democracy is added to it, as a means of controlling rulers and permitting a bloodless change of government.
Why is it that there seems to be a continuing affinity that ties together the rule of law, a comparatively high degree of personal and economic freedom, and democracy?
A vague suspicion: practises characteristic of the rule of law, personal and economic freedom are protected by a subset and intersecting set of rights equally requisite to maintain democracy. In order to keep democracy alive one mustn’t undermine these common rights. Though democracy may be popular because it opens up options to act in ways that can be directed against freedom, still continued effectiveness of democracy is wedded to the need to respect rights that lend a certain robustness to freedom, too.
Written in Marech 2013.
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