Goodbye, Rule of Law? Diagnosis and Perspective

Keywords: rule of law, legal dualism, autocratic legalism, the role of judges

English abstract: In the article, I try to show that legal dualism provides a conceptual grid for the analysis of the crisis of the rule of law. In demonstrating this, I first introduce the concept of legal dualism and then present autocratic legalism and abusive judicial review in its light. Two variants of the conceptual framework of legal dualism are suitable for describing and explaining these forms of governance. They present legal dualism as a) an instrumental action of „the main actors” in public life, and b) a social attitude that lacks a cultural imperative that allows citizens to identify with the law. Two main conclusions can be drawn from the article’s findings. First, autocratic legalism and abusive judicial review are based on the instrumentalization of the rule of law as a political ideal. Second, legal dualism as a social stance indicates that insufficient consideration of the social dimension of law has made it easier for political centres to challenge the liberal vision of the rule of law, presented by its opponents as the rule of lawyers, the social elite. A response to the charge of alienating the law in different configurations (political constitutionalism versus legal constitutionalism) is the idea of inclusivity, which can be expressed in different theoretical languages. The context for the conclusions of the article is the constitutional crisis, which is also present in the Polish legal order The empirical documentation does not determine the research methodology in the presented article. I pursue in it an approach that can be attributed to the social theory of law (B.Z. Tamanaha).  

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