Sydney, Wednesday 07 August 2024: What is the key to ‘well-tempered power’? Can the rule of law be sustained by the law alone, or does it need to be blended with distinct cultural, political, social and economic forces?
The Western concept of the ‘rule of law’ has not been applied with equal success in countries globally, many of whom have all the dressings of a legal system including courts, judges and lawyers, but still experience arbitrary exercise of significant power.
To delve into this topic the Ramsay Centre is delighted to announce that Martin Krygier AM, Gordon Samuels Professor of Law and Social Theory at the University of NSW and Senior Research Fellow, Rule of Law Program, Central European University Democracy Institute, Budapest, will deliver our fifth Ramsay Lecture for 2024.
Professor Krygier is one of the world’s leading theorists on the rule of law. His argument that the rule of law, well understood, is not merely “following the rules” but includes a culture of respect for all sorts of limitation on arbitrary power, is one of the most original and influential jurisprudential arguments of the past fifty years.
In his not-to-be-missed presentation, Well-Tempered Power: The Rule of Law in Theory & Practice, Professor Krygier will explain and defend his conception of the rule of law and discuss the challenges it faces around the world today.
NSW Solicitor-General Michael Sexton SC, an esteemed commentator and author of several books on Australian history and politics, will then offer a response before an audience Q&A session.
Professor Krygier, a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, is regularly invited to fellowships and visiting professorships at universities and institutes around the world. He frequently lectures on issues surrounding the rule of law, most recently at Hong Kong University (2024 public lecture); Glasgow (2024 Adam Smith Lecture in Jurisprudence), and Seoul (opening plenary lecture, 2024 International Association for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy World Congress on ‘Rule of Law, Justice and Democracy).’
While his current focus is why power must be and how it might be tempered, and what the rule of law may, and may not, contribute, he has also explored contemporary threats to liberal democracy, including anti-constitutional populism and authoritarianism; civility and civil society; communist and post-communist social and political developments; law and tradition; and the thought of the great sociologist, Philip Selznick.
In 1997, he delivered the ABC Boyer lectures, Between Fear and Hope: Hybrid Thoughts on Public Values. In 2016 he was awarded the Dennis Leslie Mahoney Prize in Legal Theory for his writings on the rule of law, and his intellectual biography of Selznick.
Join us on Wednesday 21 August 2024 in the Gold Melting Room, The Mint, 10 Macquarie Street Sydney, from 5:30pm (registration) – 8:00pm. Limited seating available.
To attend RSVP directly to: ramsayevents@ramsaycentre.org by Wednesday, 14 August 2024.
* This event is Booked Out
Media contact: Sarah Switzer 0407 816 098 / sarah.switzer@ramsaycentre.org