Event Recap
Examining power, justice, and democratic values
At a time when courts, constitutions, and core democratic values are under increasing pressure, Osgoode Hall Law School convened a public conversation to examine a fundamental question: why the rule of law matters now more than ever.
Hosted by Osgoode and York University, the event brought together judges, lawyers, scholars, students, and policy leaders for a focused discussion on law’s power and capacity in this dramatically challenging moment in history. The conversation featured the Honourable Bob Rae, former Premier of Ontario and Canada’s Ambassador to the United Nations.
Opening the event, Dean Trevor Farrow situated the discussion in a context familiar to many in the room.
“For a long time, the rule of law could feel almost like a given,” Farrow said. “That is no longer the case. Principles we once treated as stable are now very much in play — and in some contexts, directly under threat. Our commitment to robust rule of law values has never been more important.”
Law, Power, and the Will to Obey
In his lecture, Why the Rule of Law Matters Now More Than Ever, Rae framed the rule of law not as an abstract constitutional ideal, but as a fragile practice that depends on political will and public commitment.
Invoking Blaise Pascal’s warning that “justice without force is powerless, and force without justice is tyranny,” Rae traced the enduring tension between law and power — and the consequences when that tension collapses.
He opened with reference to Worcester v. Georgia (1832), in which the United States Supreme Court affirmed the sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation, only to see President Andrew Jackson refuse to respect the decision. The result — the Trail of Tears — illustrates a core reality of constitutional systems: courts articulate legal principle but rely on those who wield power to enforce it.
“The rule of law,” Rae observed, “exists only where those who hold power accept being bound by it.”
Canada’s Experience: Law as Both Instrument and Remedy
Rae then turned to Canada’s legal history, cautioning against any assumption that the rule of law has always functioned as a guarantor of justice.
Residential schools, the Indian Act, and the denial of Indigenous self-government were all carried out through lawful state authority. Reconciliation, he emphasized, flows not from charity but from constitutional obligation — often shaped through decades of challenging litigation.
Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, and the jurisprudence that has followed reflect a legal order forced to confront its own failures. The evolution of Indigenous rights underscores that legality and justice are not interchangeable, and that the rule of law must ultimately be evaluated by the values it embeds.
Judicial Independence Under Strain
Rae also addressed contemporary pressures on judicial independence.
In Canada, he pointed to the use — including pre-emptive invocation — of the Notwithstanding Clause as signalling a shift in constitutional culture that, in his view, risks normalizing override rather than reserving it for exceptional circumstances.
In the United States, the challenge is sometimes more explicit: public attacks on judges, threats to disregard court orders, and assertions that executive power should not be constrained by judicial review.
“What is at stake here is not disagreement with particular rulings,” Rae said. “It is whether law is understood as superior to power — or subordinate to it.”
That same tension, he argued, is now evident internationally, with growing strain on shared norms, humanitarian law, environmental governance, and emerging legal frameworks for technologies such as artificial intelligence — all of which depend on collective restraint that law is uniquely meant to supply.
The Role of Legal Communities
Rae concluded by invoking Judge Learned Hand’s reminder that liberty ultimately lives not in constitutions or courts, but “in the hearts of men and women.”
For Dean Farrow, that message underscores a responsibility shared across the legal profession.
“The rule of law does not sustain itself,” Farrow said. “It requires people — lawyers, judges, scholars, students, all of us — to take it seriously, to defend it when it is convenient and inconvenient, to explain why it matters, and ultimately to vigorously protect and promote it.”
Moderated by Professor Craig Scott, the discussion featured audience questions examining how the rule of law functions under pressure, how it can fail when political power resists constraint, and how legal communities explain and defend its importance beyond courts and classrooms.
The event was generously supported by the Law Commission of Canada, the Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime and Security, the Winkler Institute for Dispute Resolution, and York University’s Connected Minds research project.
As the evening made clear, the rule of law is neither automatic nor assured. Its endurance depends on sustained engagement, institutional humility, and a shared commitment — within the legal community and beyond — to insist that law remain a genuine constraint on power and a tool to protect and promote democratic values and the wellbeing of society.