The Rule of Law is not simply a referee. It is not shorthand for ‘we must all play by the rules’, it is more important than that. Because the Rule of Law isn’t simply the presence of rules in our politics, but rather characterises the nature of those rules – or at least the standard those rules are supposed to aspire to. That is, to ensure fair government which aims to realise some conception of justice and prevent tyrannical rule.
On the relationship between parliament and the executive power of the crown (the resolution of the tension there-arising forming the basis of Britain’s constitutional law and its foundation in the idea of ‘constitutional monarchy’) the two legal traditions rest of different bedrocks which enable very different answers to these principal constitutional questions.
We have our alternative articles of faith to inform the Union’s Reformation, however we have yet to consider concrete pillars to define its shape. It is to this I now turn.
In reality, treaties are international law. Treaties are drafted by ministers of state and diplomats and not by the people to which they will apply; it is the states rather than their citizens, who are the High Contracting Parties. The treaties lack the democratic legitimacy of constitutional law. By making the member-states the ‘Masters of the Treaties’, the people are explicitly cut out from the pouvoir constituant, having only an indirect influence over the treaties’ content.
The point Varoufakis is trying to make however is that, to say democracy is deficient in Brussels is to utterly understate the crime. Rather, democracy has never been at the centre of the European construct, and as such has only been an obstacle to negotiate in the minds of the men in power who built it. As Brussels has acquired more power, this fact has only become more evident in the way Europe has dealt with challenges against it, and more present in the minds of its citizens. The problem exploded in the wake of the Sovereign Debt Crisis, to the point that it can no longer be ignored. Left unchecked, it is now killing Europe.
We are currently going through one of the most tumultuous times in British politics for decades, and whilst it doesn’t seem like it, the pieces are moving for a sea-change in the way the British people govern themselves.
The Union is incomplete – it is half-baked and poorly constructed. But worse, it is built upon deceit and the misleading of Europe’s peoples.
The recently elected PiS government in Poland has become even more isolated after its decision to take Poland down an authoritarian path, as the constitutional court has recently ruled against it. As its opponents grow on all sides, what does this mean for Polish democracy?
In Search of Europa 