Advocacy for a citizen‐centric rule of law agenda: How do we bring the rule of law to life?

• Published date: 01 January 2021
• Author: Adis Merdzanovic,Kalypso Nicolaidis
• Date: 01 January 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/eulj.12385

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Advocacy for a citizen-centric rule of law agenda:

How do we bring the rule of law to life?

Adis Merdzanovic | Kalypso Nicolaidis*

Abstract

How do we best defend the rule of law against its attackers, both within the European Union and

outside of it? Often, the rule of law has been perceived as a domain belonging to jurists, lawyers,

bureaucrats, or politicians. Yet at its most fundamental, the rule of law needs to be thought of from

a citizen's perspective. When enforced, it guarantees freedoms and liberties for citizens and enables

us to live peacefully. In this article, we propose a citizen-centric rule of law agenda based on a deep

conviction that it is if and when it becomes a citizen-based societal principle that its many attackers

are best countered. We discuss the challenges and necessities of rule of law promotion and propose

an assessment approach called the “living list”. We close with a call for citizen-scholars to fight for

the rule of law, the most precious human invention of all time.

1|INTRODUCTION

Courageous people around the world fight for the rule of law every day: journalists who take their duty as the

“fourth estate”seriously and are thrown in jail or killed for their reporting; NGO activists who expose inhumane

treatments of prisoners; members of minorities who fight against daily discrimination and the denial of their funda-

mental rights by the society at large. All these rule of law foot soldiers are well known to us, academics or politicians,

yet they tend to be absent from our own thoughts for the most part. We are generally aware that they exist and

usually think that they do a good job, yet their struggles for the rule of law and justice seems far from our own

daily lives.

More prosaically, imagine being a pensioner denied your pension because you supported the wrong party in the

election. Or inheriting your family's estate only to find that you cannot actually own it, as the state claims ownership

“for the public benefit”so that a shopping centre can be built. Or imagine being a grandmother on whose land the

authorities have built a church illegally yet refuse to take it down, despite courts injunctions. In these examples,

the question of the rule of law now becomes more tangible, closer to the everyday experiences of many citizens in

countries where the rule of law is supposed to prevail.

Our starting point is a very simple one, well known to rule of law activists. A fundamental aspect of the rule of

law is that its importance becomes visible only “in the breach”. When it prevails, we tend not to appreciate its

* Adis Merdzanovic is a senior research fellow at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, a.merdzanovic@gmail.com; Kalypso Nicolaidis (corresponding

author) is Chair in International Affairs, School of Transnational Governance, European University Institute and professor of international relations at

Oxford University, kalypso.nicolaidis@eui.eu.

Received: 13 April 2021 Accepted: 13 April 2021

DOI: 10.1111/eulj.12385

Eur Law J. 2021;27:297–305. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/eulj © 2021 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 297