So you know what is coming, this is about law. I argue that whenever we talk about law, we should also talk about power. I suggest that many but not all lawyers are guilty of always telling us about law when they in turn should tell us, or be told, about power. I shall refer to a few major lawyers, Lord Bingham, Lord Hermer and Prof. Ekins. They all make much of a phrase ‘the rule of law’.
‘The rule of law’ is quite a phrase. First made famous by Albert Venn Dicey in his lectures on the laws of the constitution, it was theorised by Michael Oakeshott, Joseph Raz and others, and has achieved something like a revival in our time, not least in the book The Rule of Law, written by Lord Bingham QC, who died in 2010.
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