Rule of???

Scott Horton on his No Comment blog, David Iglesias when here speaking to the students, Bruce at Mainstream Baptist, and more bloggers than I can count are all decrying the need after bushco's raping of the Constitution to restore the Rule of Law. Which has had me pondering over the weekend (since I teach a high school class in law) What is the Rule of Law?

I don't think what we need is the Rule of Law.

We need a return to Common Law and move away from Civil Code.

Here is where I go back to being a basic high school history teacher. I cover the Constitution and no I don't make the students memorize the Pre-amble, like I had to when the same age, but it still says: WE THE PEOPLE...

Not God and the Ten Commandments, not Rome's twelve tables,  not even Alfred the Great's Dooms (which actually is closer to our legal system than the Bible). This country is founded on the RULE OF THE PEOPLE not the Rule of Law. We vote for and against those who make our laws and execute those laws, and if we don't like the laws they pass or the way they are executed we vote them out of office and replace them with people who respond to the WILL OF THE PEOPLE. 

Divine Right of Kings (or Presidents according to Roberto Gonzales) is what is at the heart of Bushco's raping of our Constitution. Under this kind of legal system (Civil Code) the leader (King, Emperor, whatever) is the law and everyone must obey their laws or suffer the consequences. That is a true Rule of Law. The law is king, because the King makes it. This is what we rejected in the Declaration of Independence referencing Natural Law.

In short we don't need a return to the Rule of Law, we need a return to the Rule of the People and the Spirit of the Law: our checks and balances so our next executive leader can no longer make it up as he goes along like Der Decider has for eight years. 

Civil Code (Letter of the Law) Legal system updated by Napoleon and used in all the countries he conquered or the colonies of those countries.  System was devised by Monarchs, Emperors, and dictators; earliest form Rome's Twelve Tables circa 600BC.

Common Law (Spirit of the Law) The law held in common by Germanic Tribes of Northern Europe. Since England (Germanic country) was not conquered by Napoleon the legal system used in all the British Empire. Everyone is subject to the law, even the ruler. Greatest examples being the Magna Charta, English Bill of Rights, American Declaration of Independence and the American Bill of Rights. Allows for Jury Nullification and Judicial Review.

The Spirit gives life, the Law gives death.  ---Jesus of Nazareth