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Issue No. 172 | 28 March 2003 |
Vale: Rule of Law
Poetry: If I Were a Rich Man Interview: League of Nations Industrial: 20/20 Hindsight Organising: On The Buses Unions: National Focus History: The Banner Room International: The Slaughter Continues Legal: A Legal Case For War? Culture: Singing For The People Review: The Hours Poetry: I Wanna Bomb Saddam Satire: Diuretic Makes Warne's Excuses Look Thin
Unions Condemn Protest Violence Hospitals Pick Sweatshops Over Chain Gangs New Faces Part of Labor �Rejuvenation� Test Case � UK 26, Australia 0 Uncle Sam and the Union Busters Calling All Artists � May Day Poster Comp Nipping Surveillance in the Bud Forced Labour Prevails Despite Sanctions
The Soapbox The Locker Room Guest Report Seduction Bosswatch
Tom's Tantie Shameless Extremists Barbarians at the Gate More War Comment Back-Slapping Bob
Labor Council of NSW |
Editorial Vale: Rule of Law
There was a time when the Law was an absolute; in jurisprudence they called it Natural Law. The equation was simple: The law reflected what was right, therefore the law was in and of itself a good. This principle reached its zenith in the years leading up to World War II before the horrors of Hitler and the Nuremburg Principle broke the link between law and justice for all time. Since then, the use of civil disobedience in struggles as diverse as India and the Southern States of the US further blurred the lines, with just causes given extra weight by their supporters' preparedness to break the law in their name. Meanwhile, an international legal consensus had developed over last 100 years, attempting to erect a universal framework to overlaying the sovereignty of individual nation states. Nations had the right to opt into international agreements on security, health, the environment and labour relations and when a critical mass did so, they had a moral force of something approaching law. Now something different is happening to the Law. At an international level, the United States has rendered this network of global laws impotent by defying the UN Security Council to declare war on Iraq. It follows on hot the heels of Bush's refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases. Ironically, as the US acts with the sole authority of the force of its Coalition of the Willing, it is still happy to cite the Geneva Convention to complain about the totally unjustified treatment of its invading forces. Through its actions, and the selective appeal of international conventions the US is writing a new legal doctrine of convenience - the Law as Rhetoric. Alongside strategies like embedding journalists, continuous polling and selected release of information, the Rule of Law has become just another tool in the battle for the hearts and minds of the people. This approach takes legal relativism to a new level, with the authority of Law directly linked to one's power to ignore it or invoke it as one sees fit. And what does this have to do with this week's Cole Royal Commission? Well, behind the headlines of widespread illegality by building unions lie two underlying truths. First, the overwhelming bulk of illegal acts were breaches of the Howard Government's industrial laws, specifically designed to prevent industry wide bargaining. The illegality Abbott flays at the CFMEU is illegality entirely of his own making. Second, the findings are a direct product of a process that set out to catch union officials, discount evidence against employers and sideline the genuine concerns with safety and employer rorts. Sixty million dollars to fulfil a specific, political brief. My point? There is nothing absolute about the findings against the CFMEU; rather they are the expected outcome of a process based not on law, but on raw political power. And the outcome is yet another law-enforcement agency, protecting the Monk's political friends and harassing his enemies. The righteousness of Bush and of Abbott have a common flavour, it is the certainty of the powerful. Any notion of 'The Law' is an ass in their hands. Maybe the Anarchists have won after all ... Peter Lewis Editor
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