Archive for January, 2013
Democracy without the Rule of Law is an Illusion
Anthony Ebeh
You cannot have true democracy without the rule of law. The rule of law is a sine qua non for all democracies. It is perhaps the most important ingredient in a democracy. The culture of impunity that pervades all facets of government and the elite class in Nigeria is detrimental to democracy. It was the rule of law that forced the United States Supreme Court to rule against former President Bill Clinton, a sitting President at the time in his case against Paula Jones who in February 1994 accused Bill Clinton of sexual harassment alleging that the incident occurred in May 1991 when she was a state employee of Arkansas during Clinton’s tenure as governor of the state. Mr. Clinton and his lawyers had sought to have the case postponed until he was out of office. However, the Supreme Court decided that Clinton could not postpone the suit and the case proceeded. More…