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Friday, August 12, 2022
Breaking The Law to Save the Law
I came across this passage from Dicey that explains this issue quite well:
There are times of tumult or invasion when for the sake of legality itself the rules of law must be broken. The course which the government must then take is clear. The ministry must break the law and trust for protection to an act of indemnity. A statute of this kind is . . . the last and supreme exercise of parliamentary sovereignty. It legalizes illegality; it affords the practical solution of the problem which perplexed the statesmanship of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries how to combine the maintenance of law and the authority of the houses of Parliament with the free exercise of that kind of discretionary power or prerogative which, under some shape or other, must at critical junctures be wielded by the executive government of every civilized country.
Posted by Gerard Magliocca on August 12, 2022 at 07:46 PM | Permalink
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