Philip D. Hixon A Message from the President 2022-2023 CELEBRATING THE RULE OF LAW

As you flip through this month’s issue of the Tulsa Lawyer, you will notice several announcements for the approaching Law Day/Law Week events. Law Day is celebrated on May 1 and was established by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1958 to “celebrate the rule of law in a free society,” according to the United States Courts Law Day website. This year’s Law Day theme is “Cornerstones of Democracy: Civics, Civility, and Collaboration.”

Keeping with the theme, this article attempts to be a civics lesson on the rule of law. With that said, what is the “rule of law”? Some have suggested the “rule of law” is the fundamental law found in the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution as drawn from English common law and natural law. See Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain, The Rule of Law and the Judicial Function in the World Today, 89 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1383, 1398-99 (2014). The contention is not without merit.

The Declaration speaks of the “Laws of Nature,” giving rise to “the separate and equal station” of “one people,” and their “unalienable Rights,” including “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

“[L]iberty, rightly understood, consists in the power of doing whatever the laws permit; which is only to be effected by a general conformity of all orders and degrees to those equitable rules of action, by which the meanest individual is protected from the insults and oppression of the greatest. This is a basic statement of the rule of law. The idea that we have a government of laws, not men, and that the law applies equally to all.”

Stephen B. Presser, The Development and Application of Common Law, 8 Tex. Rev. L. & Pol. 291, 294 (2004) (quoting Blackstone’s definition of “liberty” from 1 William Blackstone, Commentaries *6). The final sentence of the Blackstone quote is an apt summary of the rule of law and a personal favorite of mine.

The Constitution, which directs our republican form of government, dictates that the “government of laws” protect our “unalienable Rights” through, among other things, a separation of powers among the three branches of government. As Justice Thomas observed:

The idea has ancient roots in the concept of the “rule of law,” which has been understood since Greek and Roman times to mean that a ruler must be subject to the law in exercising his power and may not govern by will alone. The principle that a ruler must govern according to law “presupposes at least two distinct operations, the making of law, and putting it into effect.” Although it was originally thought “that the rule of law was satisfied if a king made good laws and always acted according to them,” it became increasingly apparent over time that the rule of law demanded that the operations of “making” law and of “putting it into effect” be kept separate.

Department of Transp. v. Association of Am. R.R., 575 U.S. 43, 70 (2015)(Thomas, J., concurring) (citations omitted). And interpreting such law delegated to the judiciary to further protect the “equal station” of the “one people.”

The principles and ideals underlying the “rule of law” and the fundamental law of our country are certainly worthy of celebration! I encourage you to participate in the activities coordinated by the Law Day committee under the leadership of Judge Martha Rupp Carter and Mary Clement. Many thanks to them for their dedication to the Law Day celebration.

Philip D. Hixon TCBA President, 2022-202