The True Politician according to Max Weber

Interlacements

Here is H.H. Bruun, in his book Science, Values and Politics in Max Weber’s Methodology (1972) writing of how a true politician would conduct himself according to Weber:

…[T]he precondition which Weber establishes for action in conformity with the ethic of politics is the fundamental willingness to let oneself be guided in certain cases by the value axioms of other spheres than the political one. Only those who can have “Beruf zur Politik” who do not only have this “Beruf”, who in particular situations are able and willing to submit to other value systems.

This precondition again implies that the political ethic as defined by Weber does not only demand knowledge of the laws and regularities of the political sphere; in other words, the “true” politician must not only be aware of the teleological system
surrounding his political goal, but also of the axiological (value or ethical system) one.

But…

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Republic’s Interregnum: Legal Lacunae in the State of Exception

Interlacements

Going over Republic v. Sandiganbayan’s ponencia by J. Carpio in class last night, I was struck by the abnormal situation it had to cope with and the way in which the Court dealt with it. For one, we have to realize that the 1987 Charter is a constitution that expressly carves out a state of exception for a series of acts committed by the revolutionary government — through Jovito Salonga no less! –in the constitutional interregnum.

The interregnum was our Schmittian moment in a deeply paradoxical way: we ousted the martial law regime but resorted to some of its tactics to make sure the political gains already won will not be lost again. Indeed, in the 1987 Charter, we have a constitution that expressly sanctions unconstitutional acts committed in the space of the interregnum s when there was no operative constitution!

Section 26, Article XVIII,  states:

SECTION 26. The authority…

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