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Who wins and who loses under the Rule of Law?

Zafar Bhat. Dated: 6/23/2017 11:11:16 AM

ZAFAR BHAT Jammu, June 22 Regardless of the majestic promises of the rule of law (ROL) talk, not ever one remains its equal beneficiary. Yet, we commonly told that even those who are not equal beneficiaries of the ROL goods should believe that it is a better sort of society than the “nonrule- of-law” societies, characterized by the fact of no accountability of the rulers to the ruled. In contrast, the ROL societies do proclaim, in theory, much greater scope of accountability. Those who are ruled are thus said to be not entirely at the mercy of those who rule. But there is a difference between regimes of general as contrasted with specifically detailed regimes of political accountability/ responsibility. That is why even in a ROL society, there remains scope for grave continuing excesses of power whether spectacular or routine. Thus, fully emerge some jurisprudential needs to evolve specific and concrete mechanism of accountability in addition to the diffused general ones like elections, impeachment public opinion, etc. It is this search for new and effective mechanism to make holders of public power adhere to the law and justify the exercise of power in terms of law, policy and constitutional values, which distinguishes a ROL society from other.
Pertinently, the basic expectation in ROL society is, as this narrative would have us believe by sheer narrative power or force of repetition, that the holders of public power and authority must be able to publicly justify their action as legally valid even socially wise and just.