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Rule of Law - Coggle Diagram
Rule of Law
Andocides Trial (399 BC)
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at end of Peloponnesian war, they obliterated decrees about banishing people (Andocides, 1.77)
he also evidenced this by reading a decree that banned the use of unwritten laws. However, Pericles says you can use these unwritten laws in regarding cases of impiety
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there is clearly debate here, showing the lack of institutional organisation. But it is clear that after 403 there were more organised written laws
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Demos as rulers
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no separation of powers: assembly, courts, council = same sovereign body acting in different modes
Ath. Pol. 9 - when the demos controls the vote, it controls the state
law courts are not independent arbiters, but embodiments of the demos
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Law as flexible, adaptable, rhetorical
Lysias 22
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the outcome of this depends on persuasion, not a mechanical application
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Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1.15
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if laws aren't successfully cited, speakers could also appeal to general principles, character, emotion
Jurors
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BUT, they are mute, don't have to provide any reasoning
Law is evidentiary, not prescriptive
outcomes depend on rhetorical skill, plausibility, and character judgments
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Character Assasination
"Therefore Athenians do not imagine that in assessing the penalty, you are not bearing in mind the crimes that he has committed but the crimes that he would have committed"
Denarchos, Against Philikles, 10
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Social Structures
Lending was based on friendship, reputation (doxa), xenia, not contracts
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Litigiousness
The Athenians have more public and private trials “to a degree beyond that of all other men” (Ath. Pol. 3.2)
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