My Constitution, Section 4

Section 4 - The primacy of the life and liberty of individuals

4(1) When this Constitution is silent on some matter recourse shall be taken only to this fundamental right to life and liberty to determine what the Reasonable Person would deem proper in order to uphold that fundamental right.

4(2) No government shall use or uphold any arrangement that the Reasonable Person would identify as artifice intended to circumvent this Constitution, be that arrangement intended as artifice from its beginning or the turning of a genuine arrangement to that end.

These two clauses, taken together as a unit, link the content of justice with the key mechanism behind the implementation of rule of law. I’ve indicated elsewhere that the key to understanding rule of law is in understanding the nature of principle and that the principles underlying law have to include certain key principles guiding the rest.

The how is, as stated in the two clauses, reference to what the Reasonable Person would think and do. It is the Reasonable Person who must judge those principles, act according to principles, and in whose name government formulates and enforces certain principles. The key principle is thus always to stay within the bounds of what the Reasonable Person would do and empower the government to do on his behalf. Thus these two clauses are not mere catch-alls but round out the concept of the principle as the basis for good government, and attempt to enshrine the connection between the content of just principles and the methodology of rule of law.

JJM