The uselessness of an allo-synthetic concept: “Rule of Law” and “État de Droit” from a French public law perspective

Derosier, Jean-Philippe (2016) The uselessness of an allo-synthetic concept: “Rule of Law” and “État de Droit” from a French public law perspective. Hungarian Journal of Legal Studies, 57 (1). pp. 1-9. ISSN 2498-5473

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Abstract

As a synthetic concept, the État de droit could designate those states guaranteeing predetermined principles corresponding to “the principles of the État de droit”. And even if not all principles are fully guaranteed, it is admissible anyway to consider either that a state is partially an État de droit, or an État de droit to a certain extent, or that a better guarantee of one of the principles could allow a lower guarantee of another one. The concept of État de droit would then have a material (and effective) existence and positivity in law. Unfortunately, neither the positive law nor the doctrine defines it precisely enough to make the identification of those “principles of the État de droit” easy. On the contrary, the positive law is either inexistent or contradictive and, in the latter case, it seems to make use of the notion not because of its content — whenever it has one — but because it appears like an expression summarizing the existence of other principles.

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