Emergency laws paradoxically suspend the rule of law they claim to defend

Evidence

Giorgio Agamben disagreed with Schmitt on this point, arguing in effect that the state of exception lay neither in nor above the normative legal order, thus in effect constituting no exception in any qualitative sense. It remains a primal form of modern juridico-political systems; rising out of its dormancy at any time, the perception of existential threat is awakened. It is constituted not as an essential difference but rather as a continuation of law by extrajustificatory methods. … Instead, my argument goes, it is lodged amid the normative order, defining the potentialities of its force and implicitly determining its operations, even when the rules of the so-called normative order are in effect. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 406 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Emergency conditions justify exercising power but do not themselves create it — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 2823; Camps are defined by a legally authorized suspension of law; Emergency laws that suspend the rule of law are core to neoliberal governance — Sherene Razack, Casting Out: The Eviction of Muslims…, 44 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Emergency powers are continuous with normal law, not exceptions to it #complicates (0.90) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 406