Rule according to higher law

The rule according to a higher law is a statement which expresses that no law may be enforced by the government unless it conforms with certain universal principles (written or unwritten) of fairness, morality, and justice. Thus, the rule according to a higher law may serve as a practical legal criterion to qualify the instances of political or economical decision-making, when a government, even though acting in conformity with clearly defined and properly enacted law, still produces results which many observers find unfair or unjust. The idea of a law of ultimate justice over and above the momentary law of the state—a higher law—was first introduced into post-Roman Europe by the Catholic canon law jurists. "Higher law" can be interpreted in this context as the divine or natural law or basic legal values, established in the international law—the choice depending on the viewpoint; no matter the source, it is a law above the law. And it is in this capacity that it possesses the equal legal value for both the common and civil law jurisdictions, as opposed to natural law which is largely associated with common law. "To recognize the necessary connection between the rule of law as an ideal and well-constructed constitutional government does not and should not be taken to imply that all states can or should maintain the same constitutional structures in practice". The rule according to higher law is a practical approach to the implementation of the higher law theory that creates a bridge of mutual understanding (with regard to universal legal values) between the English-language doctrine of the rule of law, traditional for the countries of common law, and the originally German doctrine of Rechtsstaat, translated into other languages of continental Europe as état de droit (French), estado de derecho (Spanish), stato di diritto (Italian), and Правовое государство (pravovoe gosudarstvo) (Russian).[ Peter Barenboim, Naeem Sidiqi, Bruges, the Bridge between Civilizations: The 75 Anniversary of the Roerich Pact, Grid Belgium, 2010].

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Related concepts (16)

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