حاكميت قانون و دموكراسي: سازگاري يا تعارض؟

The Rule of Law and Democracy: Co-existence or Conflict?

This essay is an introductory analysis of conceptions of the Rule of Law and Democracy and their multi-layers interpretations. There are compiled political, legal and sociological literatures digging up those conceptions separately, though not necessarily their conceptual relationships. This short essay attempts first to present various readings of the Rule of Law and Democracy as follow: Aristotelian, Montesquieuan, formal and substantive conceptions of the Rule of Law on the one hand and majoritarian, liberal, and participatory readings of Democracy, on the other. Then five conceptual and possible relationships of those theories have been examined: common grounds, the comprehensive conception of the Rule of Law, the comprehensive conception of Democracy, formal Rule of Law and formal Democracy, and ultimately Substantive Rule of Law and formal Democracy. This essay has tried to clarify some of common and popular misconceptions of those theories along with some important caveats and remarks including the integration of the fundamental role of Human Rights in current understanding of those concepts and also that the Rule of Law and Democracy should be comprehended far beyond their formal and limited scope. The author is of the opinion that there are many reasons for those concepts to co-exist.