In politics and law, liberal legalism is a belief that politics should be constrained by legal

constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When ...

al boundaries. Liberal legalism has also been called legal

constitutionalism Constitutionalism is "a compound of ideas, attitudes, and patterns of behavior elaborating the principle that the authority of government derives from and is limited by a body of fundamental law". Political organizations are constitutional ...

, such as is found in

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, with political constitutionalism, which is more typical of

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

, by British constitutional scholar

Adam Tomkins Adam Tomkins (born 28 June 1969) is a British academic and politician who is the John Millar Professor of Public Law at the University of Glasgow School of Law. A member of the Scottish Conservatives, he was a Member of the Scottish Parliament ...

. He argues in his book ''Our Republican Constitution'' that the British system of governance, in which Parliament controls government ministers, provides a better check on executive power than a system like that of the United States, where courts and laws are used to check executive power. Loughlin argues that the aim of legal-liberalism is to "confine politics to the straight-jacket of law." Tomkins argues that courts and constitutions are a poor check on executive or legislative authority since they must wait for court decisions to bubble up from lesser courts before they can act; since this process can take years, even decades, to happen, the court is usually slow to act. Tomkins prefers a parliamentary system like Britain's as being "more suitable and more effective" at restraining governments, and sees flaws in the American system of having courts check executive power. Opponents of liberal legalism often cite examples of executives ignoring or overcoming legal restrictions for political gain, such as presidents

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

and

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

disregarding the

War Powers Resolution The War Powers Resolution (also known as the War Powers Resolution of 1973 or the War Powers Act) () is a federal law intended to check the U.S. president's power to commit the United States to an ...

References

Legal terminology Constitutional law Theories of law Liberalism {{constitutional-law-stub

See also

References