From north to south and from east to west it is convenient to define the moment in which the so-called democratic universe decided to sacrifice the spirit and letter of its laws in exchange for the popularity and enlightenment of its leaders. The crisis that exists in the relationship between laws, justice and governments is general. There are countries – for example, China – that do not suffer from this evil, although this is really because Chinese policy, like the policy of the former Soviet Union and which is still present in today’s Russia, consists of formulating laws thought out and without room for much discussion. One may criticize the communist and even authoritarian form of both countries, but the reality is that in those nations – for better or worse – the law is the law. Although it is difficult to believe for countries that live in different realities, there are still nations and systems in which their leaders are not above institutions or laws.
Under the motto “We the people,” the Constitution of the United States of America makes it clear that, before the law, all its citizens are equal. The problem is that presidents are no longer considered ordinary citizens. Before, the word “president” instilled impeccable respect and was a position that was obtained – in addition to through popular election, in the case of democratic countries – after inspiring and granting the people the security of being the most qualified to lead the country.
There was a time when the development and implementation of programs and laws were based on the needs and wills of citizens. I am not saying that the past has been better, since corruption, opportunism and personal preference over collective preference have always been present. What is certain is that democratic laws and institutions have never been so fragile or vulnerable as they are today.
Regardless of the countries where laws have always been rhetorical devices, in the rest of the political universe all nations are in crisis and confronted with their justice system. This is especially serious, and if we have learned anything and history has left us as a lesson, it is that the big difference between a revolution and an effective democratic transition lies in respect for the legal framework.
In Israel there are still many people who believe that if the conflict between Benjamin Netanyahu and the Supreme Court of the State of Israel had not been present, the Hamas attack on October 7 would hardly have materialized. In the United States, the Supreme Court has to meet constantly to decide cases that were never in the spirit, hope or desires of the Founding Fathers, who were the ones who inspired and even, in some cases, wrote in their own hands. and letter the US Constitution. A document published in 1787 that, despite its modifications and rectifications, continues to be the cornerstone of the nation.
Nowhere was it foreseen that a president could carry out, from his office, a coup d’état with the aim of distorting an electoral result. However, that’s what happened. Nor was it expected that any president would want to return to occupy the Oval Office with 92 charges – some criminal and many of them civil – behind him. Some of these charges have to do with the insurrection at the US Capitol carried out on January 6, 2021, which is classified as a crime of sedition or treason.
In Spain, the recent threat of resignation of Pedro Sánchez after having taken five days of “reflection” after the opening of proceedings against his wife for a possible crime of influence peddling, has already had a first consequence on what he has been called as the democratic regeneration plan. This consists of accepting and letting all Spaniards know that politicians, and especially governments – and even more so if they are left-wing and separatist – are the object of lawfare. And that the only and most important thing to do is to get our hands on justice so that, firstly, it is never again an apparatus of political action and, secondly, that it can be guaranteed that what they call “the “sludge machine” can be persecuted even before the sludge is placed in the outlets of the fan of democratic garbage.
In Mexico, President López Obrador will leave two fundamental things for history. The first, the elevation to constitutional law of the social benefits that he has provided during his six-year term. The second is to be eliminating, allocating and leaving no possibility that the healthy and wise people – and now apparently clean and handsome – can trust in justice.
The confrontation between political power and the Judiciary is global, defining and exemplifies the path that awaits us, leaving two possible scenarios. Justice has always been administered by judges and judges – who, to the best of my knowledge and without proof to the contrary – are people who make mistakes, who have beliefs and who, no matter how much they fight – like the Hippocratic oath for doctors regarding the fact that their main responsibility is to save lives – it is inevitable that they will have certain temptations and problems that cause the humanization of their political decisions. Not to mention those who, simply and bluntly, have sold out or make it so that at the tip of their pen, when they are writing a sentence, what exists is the possibility of climbing three steps in their political future.
Justice was always human, therefore, it was always unjust. But the problem is that this offensive against legal systems, this attack against the role of the law and against the elements that regulate us, leaves us defenseless in having to fight off the affronts without any rules. Until now there are rules that prevent, simply by one’s own will, an electoral result from being stolen. If the laws that regulate this disappear, everything will be much easier in the short term, although in the long term it will inevitably make it a real challenge. And it will be because that would mean that anarchy would be at the door of any democratic system.
Constantly – and more so in recent years – I remember the role that the Senate had in Ancient Rome when it began to plan, on such a noble building, the figure of the Caesars. I am convinced that, without the assassination of Julius Caesar, Augustus would never have been the first Caesar. But, at the end of the day in the fight between the enemies of Caesar and the defenders of the Senate, there was a reality that closely resembles what we see today on the world political landscape. And this is what is built on the fact that the will of a man can never and should never be above the wills, expressed and materialized in laws, of a people. However, this 21st century, which – whether due to the communications revolution or the unlimited emergence of social networks into our lives – has become so complicated, over the course of its first 25 years it is shaping and having a scapegoat, which is the difficulty of keeping the laws that regulate our coexistence in force and effective.
In order not to continue speaking in a general way, we have to be aware that there are two alternatives. Or we give, as Germany did at the time with the Führer, the possibility and power that the creation, modification and elimination of laws falls on a single person, that is, that from now on the laws are only supported by thoughts and wills of the ruler in turn; or, once and for all, we establish and reinstate the limits – in the form of laws and legal mechanisms – so that we do not fall into complete autocracy. You choose.
