For Gray, the presumed neutrality of “legalist liberalism” has two disabling flaws.
“The first flaw is that the rule of law is taken as an accomplished fact, which is not the case anywhere in the world. … The rule of law is not the precondition of politics, but is itself a political achievement. Unless you have a political settlement underpinning the rule of law, the rule of law will be insecure or contested.“
The Trump trials, the U.S. Supreme Court rulings of late, the legal battles in American states over guns, abortion and LGBTQ issues all testify to the truth of this statement, as do questions over the rights of asylum and immigration in both the U.S. and Europe.
I found this interesting. For some years I have been impressed with the fallacy of demonstrators and politicians seeking to „shame“ power into „doing the right thing“ as if ExxonMobil or Jeff Bezos „just doesn’t understand“ the harm they are causing someone’s family. Currently the public discussion around asylum very much takes this tone – „but, but don’t you understand?? Surely you can’t mean that – that violates the rule of law!“ This presupposes a rule of law which does not prevail. For example:
