Rule of Law and Civil Disobedience Essay Example

means equality before law. Third, rule of law means procedural and formal justice” (Li). By Li’s definition, rule of law regulates the power of the government over its people and includes the ideals of equality and justice.

This definition provides justification for citizens to expect fairness in rule of law. An important factor of rule of law is the limits put on the discretionary power of a government, including powers to make and change laws. The government, therefore, must follow pre-written and pre-decided laws and procedures: “The rule of law requires the government to exercise its power in accordance with well established and clearly written rules, regulations, and legal principles. Under the rule of law, no person may be prosecuted for an act that is not punishable by law.

The rule of law also requires the government to exercise its authority under the law” (“Rule of Law”). A government following rule of law cannot arbitrarily create new laws for political, personal, or financial reasons, nor can it violate the existing laws. Rule of law assures protection to citizens and consistency in government, though sometimes change is what the people require. Sir Edmund Burke once wrote: “To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely. ” Citizens can only respect a country worthy of respect, with or without rule of law dictating behavior.

Rule of law may retain order, but may also be seen as unjust or unnecessary. Henry David Thoreau discusses the subject of civil disobedience when talking of his own efforts to make a nonviolent protest: “All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to and to resist

the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable” (Thoreau). When a government or ruler fails to treat all citizens equally, except in the instances of a severe totalitarian system, citizens often mobilize to voice grievances.

Citizens may decide that the governmental system is not ideal, and those affected by injustices become dissatisfied. The level of dissatisfaction seems to be directly proportional to the level of mistake the government makes, and often this dissatisfaction takes the form of opposition, potentially leading to civil disobedience. Civil disobedience has been a successful tool in initiating change in many countries. Civil disobedience is a refusal to obey an order from a civil authority or public nonviolent violation of a legal prohibition (AFSC).

Civil disobedience is generally comprised of a majority group that represents the voice of those who are adversely affected by injustice. Civil disobedience is mostly nonviolent, usually in the form of protesting. Analysis of the history of civil disobedience reveals that leaders of such movements have always advocated against violence, preferring peaceful measures as a main weapon. Peaceful weapons have been proven more effective in changing the systems and achieving national and individual freedom.

Civil disobedience utilizes a system of protests, from boycotts to strikes, that always seek to remain true to non-violent ideals. The ultimate goal of civil disobedience is to initiate systemic change. Civil disobedience is driven by a motive of correcting the wrongs and demand for equality and justice. Unlike other movements, the motive of civil disobedience is not to dictate or oppress others. It is a system of protest, driven more by intelligence than force. The question of attacking or killing has

no place in such a movement.

It aims at willingly and peacefully breaking the law. As the movement gathers momentum, the system of administration is bound to be crippled and ruptured. Ultimately, change has to be made, as demanded by the movement. One of the main attributes of civil disobedience is that it achieves attention from the general public. While violence or gratuitous acts seek to affect change through force, the peaceful actions of civil resistance are to encourage dialogue and create sympathy for a particular cause.

When civil disobedience crosses from legal into an illegal form of protest, the protesters hold fast to the general rule of law, as to not alienate the protest completely from society: “First, civil disobedience is public in the sense that the protestors do not hide their identity, and instead accept full responsibility – including any criminal punishment that may be forthcoming – for their lawbreaking. Second, it is intended as a form of communication with one’s fellow citizens, in contrast to vigilantism that seeks to coercively impose one’s desired objectives” (Chapell).

The nonviolent purpose of civil disobedience proves respect for other citizens and the rule of law. By accepting the legal responsibility of any laws that may be broken, the protestors are confirming their respect of laws, and displaying their courage and commitment in suffering for laws viewed as unjust. By subjecting one’s self to all applicable punishments, a civil disobedient is hoping to draw attention to the purpose of breaking a specific law. In attracting the needed attention, a civil disobedient is showing the desire for governmental change.

Civil disobedience is more of a symbolic or ritualistic violation of the law,

rather than a rejection of the system as a whole (“Civil Disobedience”). Indian spiritual and political leader Mahatma Gandhi believed in Satyagraha, the philosophy of non-violent resistance. He used it to drive the most powerful empire in the world out of his country, achieving independence and proving to the rest of the colonial world that peaceful resistance could initiate change. Gandhi passionately advocated nonviolence and peaceful protesting, and provided guidelines on civil disobedience.

Some of Gandhi’s guidelines included that resisters would harbor no anger, or suffer the anger of the opponent, putting up with assaults, though never retaliating. Civil resisters would not submit, out of fear of punishment or the like, to any order given in anger, and they would also accept arrest, the loss of property, and adherence to all other laws as dictated by authorities. However, if a civil resister has any property in is possession as a trustee, he will refuse to surrender it, even though in defending it he might lose his life.

He will however, never retaliate, insult his opponent, nor submit to the pomp and circumstance accompanying allegiance to the government being opposed. And, as part of Gandhi’s guidelines, a civil resister will even protect opposing authorities from any violence that might be perpetrated upon them (Gandhi). With Gandhi’s guidelines for civil disobedience, one can clearly see that rule of law is a careful consideration to those wishing to peacefully affect change.

Martin Luther King adhered to Gandhi’s guidelines for civil disobedience to protest segregation and helped ensure equal rights for African Americans in the process. Written from jail after King was arrested for protesting rule of law, a ‘Letter from Birmingham’

espoused his views on rule of law that enabled social injustice and how it must be opposed: “In any non violent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of facts to determine whether injustices exist, negotiation, self-purification and direct action.

We have gone through all these steps Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham is perhaps the most thoroughly segregated cities in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than any other city in the nation. These are hard brutal facts of the case.

On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers, but the latter consistently refused to engage in good-faith negotiation” (King). To King and other civil resisters, it is the right of every individual to fight for justice and equality by the virtue of his very birth, putting it forever opposed to any rule of law considered unjust. This seems to make the suggestion that civil disobedience of any law could stand true for every law, if enough people supported it.

Injustice and inequality can exist under rule of law, and civil resistance is a non-violent way to oppose the responsible government. While breaking any law is technically outside the rule of law, civil disobedience cannot be considered consistent with it. However, when the resisters accept the legal liability in exchange for attention for a cause, it can appear to slip through a loophole and become consistent with the rule of law. It becomes a way

to use the law.

Lawmakers are not always sane, equal, fair make them prone to error in framing laws; civil disobedience is a way to use the law by breaking it. While civil disobedience is not consistent with the rules of law, injustice and inequality seems to continued unabated, and the natural right of an individual is to oppose such laws. Civil disobedience will remain an effective method of opposing rule of law considered unjust, though determining justice may prove to be the most difficult part of the process, as well as the most important.