A Government of Laws, Not of Men

[babylonsister]

A Government of Laws, Not of Men

By Peter Dyer
February 10, 2009

Editor’s Note: Washington insiders are divided into two basic groups over what to do about the sordid history of the Bush administration: one side wants a “truth” commission but no jail time, and the other side says do nothing beyond thanking George W. Bush and his aides for a job well done.

But there is a grassroots movement out there that battled the Bush administration’s crimes as they were happening – often in the face of disdain from the insiders – and that group believes serious accountability must be achieved if the health of the American Republic is to be restored, a position shared by journalist Peter Dyer:



Now that the unprecedented lawlessness of the Bush administration is history, we have an equally unprecedented opportunity to reaffirm the foundation of American democracy: the rule of law.

Restoring the rule of law is as urgent as restoring the economy. Indeed, the problems are closely related and best addressed together.

In 1947, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote: “In a democracy, power implies responsibility. The greater the power that defies law, the less tolerant can this Court be of defiance.”

Two years earlier, seeking to bring high-ranking Nazis to justice at Nuremberg, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson said:

“The very minimum legal consequence of the treaties making aggressive wars illegal is to strip those who incite or wage them of every defense the law ever gave, and to leave war-makers subject to judgment by the usually accepted principles of the law of crimes.”

more...

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/021009a.html

[midnight]

1. The two groups must obey the law.

leave war-makers subject to judgment by the usually accepted principles of the law of crimes.”

[suston96]

2. A government of laws and not of men.......who said that?

The author of the article quotes John Adams. Well, John Adams said those words when he wrote the Constitution of Massachusetts - ratified in Massachusetts in 1780 - 8 years before the US Constitution. In the Declaration of Rights:

Article XXX. In the government of this commonwealth, the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, or either of them: the executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them: the judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them: to the end it may be a government of laws and not of men.

http://www.mass.gov/legis/const.htm

The greatness of John Adams and his unparalleled contribution to the founding of this republic cannot be ever forgotten - though it has for ever so long.

[bemildred]

3. Indeed, laws which are not enforced, or selectively enforced, are worse than no law at all.

In the same way that a lie is worse than the truth.

"It is one of the genuine marks of servitude to have the law either concealed or precarious."
-- Sir Edward Coke