Secondary legal coding lets even the weakest be right against the highest power-holder.

Evidence

A theory which tried to solve the problem of code-thematization by exploring the mediaand system-specific opportunism would look fundamentally different. For example, if the power-code receives its secondary coding from law and it is therefore possible for the highest power-holder to do wrong and even the weakest of the weak to be in the right – and, in cases of argument, to be capable of maintaining that right – the question of the precedence of power or law must be reflected in the system, while nevertheless remaining structurally unresolved. … So it is structurally important that long-term identifications are avoided and that decisions, whether taken according to subject-matter or by implication, do not lead to a situation where the power-holder is always in the right. To be legally justified (legibus solutus) is the most which can be granted to him. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 692

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines what Luhmann means by ‘secondary codification’ of the power-code via law, with the concrete consequence that power and right need not coincide.
• XREF: Speaks directly to the Ishiguro/Lord Darlington problem: a hierarchy that can do wrong even at its top, and the structural requirement that the power-holder is never automatically in the right.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing whether Darlington’s deference collapses precisely because English butlering culture avoids ‘long-term identifications’ between power and right.