The “Import” of the Rule of Law as a Democratic Tradition in Post-communist Constitutional Usage: Charting a Multi-Level Theoretical Matrix
The “Import” of the Rule of Law as a Democratic Tradition in Post-communist Constitutional Usage: Charting a Multi-Level Theoretical Matrix

Summary/Abstract: Analyzing the “rule of law” within the European post-communist environment generates confusions, irregularities and difficulties of interpretation and understanding, especially when political conditions rebalance the legal meaning of normative claims and the precautionary principles of transition such as: democracy, democratic and social state, democratic multiparty system, constitutional order, and social justice. The article focuses on the rule of law as a “democratic tradition squared by the basic legal principle of legal and political morality depending on a particular normative and interpretative norm. After providing a constitutional analysis of the rule of law in the former communist countries constitutions, the study identifies and replaces all relevant and common values in twosided matrices considered as a valuable theoretical condition of establishing a functional democracy. The paper uses a methodology that examines and reconstructs the legitimating status of rule of law in the constitutional provision of post-communist states. The results of the study are rather challenging. On the first place, the study is engaging in a post-communist debate on the “import” of the rule of law and its outcomes in hybrid societies and, on the second place, the study serves as an “exhibit” of the theoretical patterns facing the “post-communist thesis” and its transformations.

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