It is very difficult for a nation to uphold the rule of law if its citizens do not respect the law. Let`s say people in your community have decided they don`t want to be bothered by traffic laws and start ignoring stop signs and traffic lights. The ability of police officers to enforce laws would be overwhelmed and the streets of your community would quickly become a chaotic and dangerous place. The rule of law works because most of us agree that it is important to comply with the law, even if no police officer is present to enforce it. Our consent as citizens to obey the law in order to maintain our social order is sometimes seen as part of the social contract. This means that in exchange for the benefits of the social order, we agree to live according to certain laws and rules. Making laws that man cannot and will not obey serves to despise all law. In a republic, it is very important that the people respect the laws, because if we throw them to the wind, what will happen to a civilian government? Martha Kinsella: There has been an erosion of standards, unwritten rules and practices in various areas of government, including the Department of Justice. It`s older than the Trump administration. There have already been abuses, such as Watergate and the scandal of firing US prosecutors under the George W.

Bush administration. But there has been a marked acceleration in the number and scale of abuses during the current administration. To remedy this situation, we need to do more than simply restore standards that were not written before. We really need to codify them — really give them the force of law — in many different areas, from the rule of law to ethics, to the human resource process and the role of science in public policy. The rule of law, mechanism, process, institution, practice or norm that supports the equality of all citizens before the law, ensures a non-arbitrary form of government, and generally prevents the arbitrary use of power. Arbitrariness is typical of various forms of despotism, absolutism, authoritarianism and totalitarianism. Despotic governments even include highly institutionalized forms of government in which the entity at the top of the power structure (such as a king, junta, or party committee) is able to act without the coercion of law if it so wishes. The Supreme Court`s opinion in Gideon v. Wainwright guaranteed the right to counsel for impoverished defendants who could not afford to be represented by a lawyer. The Gideon decision was based on the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees defendants «the assistance of defense counsel.» The Gideon case dealt with the question of whether this guarantee of assistance required the State to provide legal advice if a defendant did not have the means to exercise his constitutional right. Kinsella: H.R. 1, H.R.

4 and the Protection of Our Democracy Act are closely related and mutually reinforcing. They need, for example, H.R. 1 to ensure that people can express their preference at the ballot box and that candidates who represent the interests of voters rather than the interests of donors can succeed in our electoral process. For example, if the president is in office and appoints people to lead the executive, accountability measures are needed to ensure that the executive branch cannot undermine our democracy. Kinsella: It is important to talk about the rule of law and impartial justice and what it means when the president or other members of the government put their thumbs in the balance, order prosecutions or order people in the Department of Justice not to take certain actions in law enforcement and investigations. We`ve seen a lot of political interference in high-profile Justice Department cases under the Trump administration — the case of Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, not to mention the White House`s attempts to shut down the Mueller investigation. Efforts like these have undermined the Justice Department`s independence from political interference. The key to the rule of law, the judges say, is the obligation to apply the law fairly to all. Other attributes include law enforcement to government, not just individuals and entities; clarity of law and transparency of judicial proceedings; and the balance between individual rights and the safety of others.