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Lecture on the book, ‘The law against democracy?’, by Bertrand Mathieu, a professor at the Law School of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University and special councillor to the French Council of State.
The law is inseparable from the construction of democracy to such an extent th
at democracy and the rule of law can become confused. The underlying idea of this publication is to show that the law can also be erected against democracy. The notion of a people within a set of borders and sharing a common destiny has been inseparable from the construction of a democratic system.These foundational aspects of the State are crumbling. Threats leading to the State’s disintegration can be found in the existence of non-State legal orders obeying other legitimacies, the development of individualism and communalism, the deterioration of fundamental rights into moral tirades, the weakening of political power, the loss of the ‘public interest’ as an effective concept, and the challenges posed by radicalised political Islam. The 2017 presidential election in France presented a stark reminder of this situation. If liberal democracy, the West’s model of government, deserves to be saved, the jurisdiction of States should be clarified, and the people be given back the means to express themselves.
For more information on the book