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The Rule Of Law And The Rule Of Laws, David F. Forte

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The thesis of this article is that, for the Rule of Law to be maintained in a modern technological society, the legal system must affirmatively tolerate a range of justifiable non-compliance. I begin with a rather strong definition of the Rule of Law, one that encompasses not merely the procedural desiderata of Lon Fuller (which John Finnis accepts), but also the notion that the Rule of Law has a substantive content (the common good) and that it necessarily binds the rulers as well as the ruled. I posit as an opposite phenomenon to the Rule of Law, the rule of …