LAW AND PUBLIC OPINION

LAW AND PUBLIC OPINION

“ But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed."Which of the two do you want me to release to you?" asked the governor. "Barabbas," they answered."What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called Christ?" Pilate asked. They all answered, "Crucify him!"  "Why? What crime has he committed?" asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, "Crucify him!"  Matthew 27-21-23

Public Opinion is a concept that seems to take force at the current juncture, public opinion at the head of one of the top representatives of the World Donald Trump, in the United States of America but that may perhaps come to represent a threat to democracy, because with Demagogy is thought to kill the rule of law.

I intend by means of this article to make an analysis, of course, initiating elements of great importance within the political sciences to arrive at the possible practical consequences because the people are not always right.

It is necessary to examine in principle the notion of the rule of law under the lights of political theory and who else but one of the greatest representatives of state theory, John Locke his philosophy is unavoidable, but to develop it the famous English part of the theory Hobbes contract. In his work two essays on civil government (1690) he gathers the formation of what is conceived as a rule of law and that is to avoid conflicts of nature, man necessarily associates (the contract) with what consequently leads what would be called the construction of civil society.

And thus in the State of Nature, one Man comes by a Power over another; but yet no Absolute or Arbitrary Power, to use a Criminal when he has got him in his hands, according to the passionate heats, or boundless extravagancy of his own Will, but only to retribute to him, so far as calm reason and conscience dictates, what is proportionate to his Transgression, which is so much as may serve for Reparation and Restraint. For these two are the only reasons, why one Man may lawfully do harm to another, which is that [which] we call punishment. (Two Treatises )

There something that worried the English even more and is exposed in the events of his time the famous glorious revolution of 1688 the fight against the monarchical absolutism of which he affirmed it was necessary to stop, it is required to impose limits on the government, for which a power was necessary , but where to locate it? Montesquieu presents the tripartite division, but in Locke it was the institutional control of what he called "the rule of law" or in English "rule of law"; perhaps as the only instrument to guarantee the protection of citizen rights, the law to contain the power of the king that is later constitutionalized providing the consolidation of a democratic structure until our time.

In this order of ideas, the rule of law is a true institution in democratic countries, in most constitutions of Western countries the figure of the rule of law is recognized, but in the face of economic crisis events, something more social was gradually assimilated. and human, giving in practice more participatory elements to the community, the defense of matter and effectiveness of fundamental rights, such as the revocation of mayors and governors.

Within this context, the concept of public opinion is erected with apparent force as a stage or phase superior to the rule of law and in simple terms that does not mean anything other than resorting to the opinion of the people, to the majorities so that it defines itself his luck; but when the first reading is made, the first thing that appears is a very democratic conception, which can already be contrasted in the political events and events in the United States, Europe and Latin America, finding autocratic models of government and media manipulation such as Donald Trump or postponements of dictatorships such as Nicolás Maduro, who uses apparent majorities to cling to political power.

But here I want to stop in regards precisely to these practical consequences and for this I feel obliged to use the ideas and contributions of the enlightened despotism of the late XVIII century, and the first of them that I will present is nothing more or nothing less than Juan Jacobo Rousseau, one of the most misunderstood political philosophers, qualified even by some critics of the matter as "Unclassifiable" of his time, and they have taught us that since the Emilio going through the social contract Rousseau was a great Democrat, but there are serious shortcomings regarding such a belief; because the enlightened Frenchman had everything but a democrat, his general will was not "per se" the decision of the majorities, his conception of democracy was not an agglutination of people demanding rights, even in his personality traits denoted a contempt for the populace , “They are ignorant. We must educate them ”, and that commitment to education as a fight against obscurantism is perhaps the reason why many schools bear his name.

Rosusseau, in my opinion, denies individual rights, it is necessary to remember that in the social contract it restricts the freedom of expression, assembly and association, rejects the division of powers, in which Locke and Montesquieu blindly believed and this already says a lot about their mood politician as a good defender of the rising bourgeoisie.

But now I want to place myself almost at the forefront of Rousseau's political philosophy and from the other side with one of his fierce opponents but also one of the greatest representatives of the enlightenment, François-Marie Arouet, known to everyone as Voltaire, another of those they denoted a certain contempt for the populace, even though they encouraged revolutionary ideas, because in their philosophical approaches they insisted on the need for democratic participation, but that it was necessary to overcome the ballasts of ignorance and superchery through education.

Once I have stated this philosophical background, I can argue that the rise of public opinion cannot in practice represent more than a threat to democracy itself, a state of opinion as a ploy of those who want to impose a vision of the country by force, or perhaps forms of personal autocracy of governments, because when the state decisions do not serve them, then we appeal to the people to undermine them and subject them to the fiction of the general will.

I think it is appropriate to reflect on the concept of Public Opinion, and it is that this concept was born approximately in the thirties of the twentieth century, with great relevance in the United States and Europe, I could cite C. MONZON who defines it as “the discussion and expression of the views of the public (or public) on matters of general interest, aimed at the rest of society, and above all to power ”

The formation of public opinion is due to certain factors and one of them is the media who in practice have become tools to generate criteria trends, not because the media themselves are, but because behind them there are actors politicians and pressure groups that ultimately determine the political agenda.

Public opinion is subordinated to many pressures, which moves away from neutral mediation to become mediatization, because what is in the background are precisely these agents or political actors, as well as the biblical passage when the people were manipulated for the elders to free beards and condemn Jesus to death.

As a lawyer, it seems to me supremely serious that on this rough road to that supremacy of opinion and that the judicial debate be submitted or what is simpler a judicial process to the public opinion, which lacks all the legal elements to comment on the evidence, testimonies or documents, the judicial reserve has been broken and they intend to turn the truth of public opinion into judicial truth by committing serious injustices.

The people are not in a position to decide their fate at all, as evidenced by the lousy rulers they have chosen, and this ideological fanaticism and the violence of polarization is nothing more than the paradigm of extreme ignorance in which we find ourselves. a lot of work in education, that's why the same enlightened despotism of the 18th century emphasizes the importance of educating citizens.

Already approaching the end of this article I want to be incisive in my position that the State of opinion would mean the terrifying closure of the rule of law, the law and our institutions, to leave decisions in the hands of a majority that very often does not know what Hegel would like, as Hegel would say, "The town is that part of the State that does not know what it wants," or as Hobbes would say ... the natural law, that which appears in social networks, hatred and the desire to kill whoever thinks differently, who thinks differently.

Therefore, I conclude with the epigraph of this article, the bible verse contained in the book of St. Matthew Chapter 27 verse 20 to 23, because the people were manipulated by the elders to free Barrabas a confessed criminal and condemn our Savior, Jesus Christ ; therefore it only allows me to validate the same subtitle of "The people are not always right" thank you very much and Blessings.

Omar Colmenares Trujillo.