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and uphold the political and civil liberties that have gained status
as universal human rights over the last half-century. In particular,
anyone accused of a crime has the right to a fair, prompt hearing
and is presumed innocent until proved guilty … the relationship
between the rule of law and democracy is profound …’

This poses the question whether you can have one without
the other? And whether one implies the existence of the other.

Unfortunately ‘democracy’ too is a concept with a penumbra
of meaning. There is hardly a state on earth which does not
proclaim to be a democracy in some sense of the word. Given that
there many ways of defining democracy, we should proceed from
the assumption that there is no such thing as perfect democracy. It
is in the nature of democracy that it does not function as a system
in the same way as other ‘systems’ of government. Churchill
famously said that democracy was the worst form of government
with the exception of all the others that have ever been tried!

My own rough definition, given democracy’s many different
forms, is one that depends on having parliamentary representation
via an electoral system. Electoral systems being imperfect,
debateable as to their respective merits, and capable of being
subverted by corruption and other malpractices, and the right to
vote itself being subject to restrictions, here is my definition. A
democracy is a system in which both government and opposition
have to compete seriously for votes in a broad franchise, and
voting determines who forms the government. This is not as
broad a definition as it might seem, although it is purposely
designed to include imperfect democracies. Before 1928 the
United Kingdom did not have votes for women on the same basis
th
as men. In the 19 century only male property owners were
allowed to vote. On my criterion no country was a democracy
th
until the late 19 century. A criticism of my definition might be
that it inc ludes spur ious sy stems in whic h voting is
gerrymandered, or where for other reasons there is no level
electoral playing field. But if you are looking for complete fairness
then no system is democratic. Even in the United States the two
main parties compete with unequal funding and the voters do not

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