“Law has a sovereign authority and there can not be a law without sovereign authority” Critically analysis this statement
Introduction:
As an intellectual construct, sovereignty has often been assimilated to the rise of the nation-state in Europe during the early modern period. It is true that sovereignty as a theoretical or a practical precept is incompatible with tribal or feudal societies, where power is decentralized or parceled out into the hands of numerous lord lings, all of whom exercise governmental functions in overlapping and semi-autonomous forms. Yet societies that deified their supreme rulers, such as ancient Egypt or Japan, thereby sought at least implicitly to capture a salient element of sovereignty: that a unitary source existed from which flowed the validity of all lesser forms of command and rule.
Perhaps the political and legal system that most cogently expressed the aspiration to sovereign authority before the rise of the modern state system was the Roman Empire. (Of course, Roman ideas, especially those contained in its civil law, in turn exercised considerable influence on early modern thought.) The Roman doctrine of emporium, meaning the concentration of powers over the territories of the Empire in the hands of its Emperor, conveyed the unrivaled and unchallengeable supremacy invested in the ruler. To affront this emporium by word or deed constituted a grave crime against the Roman majesty, punishable by execution. When emporium is coupled with the legal doctrine that the Emperor is legibus solutus—a law unto himself answerable to no one—one arrives at a concept very nearly identical to that of sovereignty
What is Authority?
Authority, express or implied, intentionally given by a principal to an agent. In other words, Authority that is detrimental to a partyÂ’s argument or position regarding a question or an issue. Usually, when a lawyer finds such authority, he is under an ethical obligation to reveal it to the court, but it is done in such a way (for example, arguing that the decision in a previous case should be narrowly construed or was wrongly decided) as to minimize the authority Â’s effect upon his client Â’s case. Moreover, Authority that can be reasonably inferred by a third party to have been given to an agent based upon the third party’s A dealings with the principal or upon the principal Â’s representations even if the principal did not intend to give the agent such authority.
What is Sovereignty?
“Sovereignty” is the authority to govern or rule a nation or group of people. To extend, “Sovereignty is the exclusive right to exercise supreme political (e.g. legislative, judicial, and/or executive) authority over a geographic region, group of people, or oneself.” (from the Latin superanus, supremacy) In a democracy, sovereignty is considered to reside with the individual citizens.
Firstly, man does not have “rights” but instead one right, the “birthright”, to have everything. If plurality of rights appears that really means “privileges”, the privilege of use licences. Privilege in the situation does not mean “privilege of the rich”. Sovereignty means “soul reign” where if man has an eternal soul, it reigns within him and should in physical life. However, we have many people and many sovereigns may seem a problem. Thus leadership appears amongst sovereigns. It is necessary for order. However, today we do not have sovereignty in the market place as the Polity forgot in history how to bestow or grant it. Therefore, people are sovereign not land or things. We misinterpret many subjects in life. Land can have solidarity, but not sovereignty. The latter is exclusively man’s. To grant sovereignty is a simple process of a pure trust Exchangor/Grantor granting it to any human that desires it. Once sovereign, one is a legal individual and not subject to anyone or anything unless he or she so chooses. “As of grace by the sovereign himself (agbesh)” (Blackstone’s Commentaries 242 – Corpus Juris Secundum)
Sovereign authority of law
Entity (such as a parliament) whose actions have the legal force, and in whom resides the ultimate power to lay down, modify, and rescind the laws of the land. It is also called sovereign power.
The classic regime of sovereignty highlights the development of a world order in which states are nominally free and equal; enjoy supreme authority over all subjects and objects within a given territory; form separate and discrete political orders with their own interests (backed by their organization of coercive power); recognize no temporal authority superior to themselves; engage in diplomatic initiatives but otherwise in limited measures of cooperation; regard cross-border processes as a “private matter” concerning only those immediately affected; and accept the principle of effectiveness, that is, the principle that might eventually makes right in the international world – appropriation becomes legitimating.
Four important corollaries to the development of the classic regime of sovereignty should be emphasized. In the first instance, the crystallization of international law as interstate law conferred on heads of state or government the capacity to enter into agreements with the representatives of other states without regard to the constitutional standing of such figures; that is, without regard to whether or not heads of state were entitled by specific national legal arrangements to commit the state to particular treaty rights and duties. Second, interstate law was indifferent to the form of national political organization. It accepted “a de facto approach to statehood and government, an approach that followed the facts of political power and made few inquiries into how that power was established” (Crawford and Marks 1998, 72). Absolutist regimes, constitutional monarchies, authoritarian states, and liberal democratic states were all regarded as equally legitimate types of polity.
The third corollary involved the creation of a disjuncture between the organizing principles of national and international affairs. In principle and practice, the political and ethical rules governing these two spheres diverged. As liberal democratic nation-states became slowly entrenched in the West, so did a political world that tolerated democracy in nation-states and no democratic relations among states; the entrenchment of accountability and democratic legitimacy inside state boundaries and the pursuit of reasons of state (and maximum political advantage) outside such boundaries; democracy and citizenship rights for those regarded as “insiders” and the frequent negation of these for those beyond their borders (Held 1999, 91). The gulf between Sichtlichkeit and Realpolitik was taken for granted.
The fourth corollary to the classic regime of sovereign international law concerns the legitimating of all those groups and non-state actors who sought to contest territorial boundaries, with paradoxical consequences. Stripped of traditional habitats and territories by colonial powers and hegemonic interests, such groups often had no alternative but to resort to coercion or armed force in order to press their claims to secure homelands. For they too had to establish “effective control” over the area they sought as their territory if they were going to make their case for international recognition
Conclusion:
According to above discussion the relation between a sovereign power and the subject who are ruled by the sovereign power is unchangeable as the law has its own strength to protect the subject from any discrepancy. However the law is heavily dependent on the sovereignty of the state. If the state fails to ensure the equality of law to every subject of the state, the subject will feel that the law is a tyranny for them. The state has to ensure the public interest of the law. Therefore, the rule of law will protect the society from any kinds of anarchy, crime or discrimination. The state has the power to change the constitution or law for the best interest of its subject which is its citizen. However, they will also have to ensure responsible use of that power.a