Abstract
In the legal traditions both of common law and European civil law, legislators and judges work together to uphold the rule of law and to protect individual rights. Under normal circumstances, conflicts between the legislator and the courts do not threaten the rule of law in any fundamental way. Infringements on the rule of law by the legislator and the administration are corrected by the courts according to the corresponding legal tradition, sometimes with the aid of international courts, and these adjustments by the judiciary are accepted by the administrative and political community. Different from such normal and inevitable challenges to the relations between politics and law under ordinary circumstances are situations where those in power over legislation use legal means to systematically undermine democracy, liberty, and the rule of law. In such cases we expect the courts to offer protection. In many cases, however, judges have failed and become part of the instruments of oppression. To be betrayed by the courts is particularly painful to our sense of justice.
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Notes
- 1.
Submission to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission by the following members of the Supreme Court of Appeal: Mr. Justice J.W. Smalberger, Mr. Justice C.T. Howie, Mr. Justice R.M. Marais, and Mr. Justice D.G. Scott.
- 2.
Berman (1983), p. 292.
- 3.
Berman (1983), p. 294.
- 4.
Dworkin (1986), p. 93.
- 5.
See Shapiro (2008), p. 329.
- 6.
Halliday et al. (2007), pp. 10–11.
- 7.
The Justice Case (1951), p. 985.
- 8.
- 9.
Osiel (1995), pp. 527–528.
- 10.
Pereira (2005), Kindle edition, location 2293.
- 11.
Report of the Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Indiana 1993, p. 143.
- 12.
The Justice Case (1951), p. 1086.
- 13.
The Justice Case (1951), pp. 1155–1156.
- 14.
- 15.
The Justice Case (1951), p. 31.
- 16.
See Wilke (2009), pp. 181–201.
- 17.
- 18.
See Rundle (2009), p. 76.
- 19.
Fraenkel (1941), p. 46.
- 20.
Fraenkel (1941), p. 41.
- 21.
Fraenkel (1941), p. 57.
- 22.
Fraenkel (1941), p. 107.
- 23.
Pauer-Studer (2012), p. 378.
- 24.
Argentina signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on 19 February 1968 and ratified on 8 August 1986, Brazil signed and ratified on 24 January 1992, Chile signed on 16 September 1969 and ratified on 10 February 1972, South Africa signed on 3 October 1994 and ratified on 10 December 1998.
- 25.
Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa, vol. 4, p. 101.
- 26.
Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa, vol. 4, p. 103.
- 27.
Report of the Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation, p. 141.
- 28.
See the cases reported in Halliday et al. (2007).
- 29.
Barros (2008), pp. 167–168.
- 30.
Osiel (1995), p. 518.
- 31.
Rode (1983), p. 331.
- 32.
See further on Lothar Kreyssig on pp. 103–104 below.
- 33.
See Fraser (2005), pp. 330–331.
- 34.
See, for an overview of Hitler’s and the other leading Nazis’ expressions on law and lawyers, Rüthers (2012), pp. 101–111.
- 35.
The Justice Case (1951), p. 1011.
- 36.
See Rüthers (2012), p. 272.
- 37.
Führer decree of 1 September 1939; see The Medical case (1951), vol. I, p. 795.
- 38.
The Medical case (1951), vol. I, pp. 815–817.
- 39.
Döring (2011), p. 45 and further on pp. 103–104 below.
- 40.
See Freudiger (2002), pp. 347–350.
- 41.
The Justice Case (1951), pp. 1014–1017.
- 42.
See Fuller (1957), p. 652.
- 43.
Fraser (2005), p. 438.
- 44.
Großer Senat für Straffsachen, 23 February 1938, Entscheidungen des Reichsgerichts, Strafsachen 72 91.
- 45.
Großer Senat für Straffsachen, 23 February 1938, Entscheidungen des Reichsgerichts, Strafsachen 72 91.
- 46.
See Pauer-Studer (2014), p. 55.
- 47.
In this direction, Ogorek (2008), p. 304.
- 48.
Fraenkel (1941), p. 96.
- 49.
Fraenkel (1941), p. 89.
- 50.
Rundle (2009).
- 51.
RG., 1 Siv.Sen., 27. June 1936, Seufferts Archiv 91, 65; see further on p. 66–67.
- 52.
See Schleunes (2001).
- 53.
See Essner (2002), pp. 201–214.
- 54.
Essner (2002), p. 204.
- 55.
See Herbert (2011), p. 224.
- 56.
Lippman (1992–1993), pp. 257–318.
- 57.
Adami (1939), pp. 486–491.
- 58.
Cited Schmitt (1933), p. 43.
- 59.
See Rüthers (2012), p. 505.
- 60.
See Majer (1988), pp. 46–73.
- 61.
Strenge (2002), pp. 170ff.
- 62.
See Pereira (2005), Kindle edition, location 128 and 141.
- 63.
Haffner (2003), p. 126.
- 64.
See Herbert (2011), pp. 177–181.
- 65.
Statement by SS-Oberfuehrer Dr. Günther Reinecke, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Reinecke, Dr. Guenther ZS-0121 http://www.ifz-muenchen.de/archiv/zs/zs-0121.pdf (accessed 11.04.14).
- 66.
Fraenkel (1941), p. 39.
- 67.
Osiel (2009) p. 37.
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Graver, H.P. (2015). State Repression and the Rule of Law. In: Judges Against Justice. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44293-7_2
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