Freedom And The Rule Of Law

"Freedom and the Rule of Law takes a comprehensive look at the historical beginnings of law in the United States as well as recent developments affecting the relationship between freedom and the rule of law. Although the relationship between freedom and the rule of law has been a perennial one since America's Founding, as the contributions compiled by Anthony A. Peacock in this book make clear, it is also a theme of particular importance today." --Book Jacket.

This volume explores the various strategies, mechanisms and processes that influence rule of law dynamics across borders and the national/international divide, illuminating the diverse paths of influence. It shows to what extent, and how, rule of law dynamics have changed in recent years, especially at the transnational and international levels of government. To explore these interactive dynamics, the volume adopts an interdisciplinary approach, bringing together the normative perspective of law with the analytical perspective of social sciences. The volume contributes to several fields, including studies of rule of law, law and development, and good governance; democratization; globalization studies; neo-institutionalism and judicial studies; international law, transnational governance and the emerging literature on judicial reforms in authoritarian regimes; and comparative law (Islamic, African, Asian, Latin American legal systems).

European Convention on Human Rights – Article 10 – Freedom of expression 1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises. 2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary. In the context of an effective democracy and respect for human rights mentioned in the Preamble to the European Convention on Human Rights, freedom of expression is not only important in its own right, but it also plays a central part in the protection of other rights under the Convention. Without a broad guarantee of the right to freedom of expression protected by independent and impartial courts, there is no free country, there is no democracy. This general proposition is undeniable. This handbook is a practical tool for legal professionals from Council of Europe member states who wish to strengthen their skills in applying the European Convention on Human Rights and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights in their daily work.

There is a great confusion in the world and even more in that part of the world that considers itself as representing the Western civilization. This confusion arises in two realms: the semantics and the conceptual. The first of these confusions is the result of ignoring the ethical and the political philosophy antithesis between the Anglo-American philosophy and the Franco-German one. As Balint Vazsonyi once wrote, they are as different as day and night. At the same time, that philosophical confusion to which Dr Ribas refers as the syncretism of Western philosophy, is the pretentious nirvana of democracy in the West. Conceptually, democracy may be divided in two antithetical systems: the rule of law and the majority rule. Majority rule is the opposite of the protection of individual rights: to life, liberty, property and the pursuance of happiness. In this book Dr Armando P. Ribas exposes the fact that the apparent rights of the majorities are no more than the absolute power of governments in the name of the people, that constitutes the new deity. This is in Aristotelian terms demagoguery, and the reason why democracy fails in Latin America, as it happened in Europe where Hitler and Mussolini represented majority rule as the most common excuse: reason of the state.