Is the Lockdown Lawful? With Martin van Staden

Published: May 31, 2020, 8 a.m.

Are lockdown regulations lawful? Do we have a duty to obey the law? What if the law is immoral, contradictory or unknowable?  The famous philosopher Lon Fuller wrote a thought experiment about King Rex  who failed to make law in eight different ways.  1) A failure to achieve rules at, all so that every issue must be decided on an ad hoc basis. 2)A failure to publicize, or at least make available to the affected party, the rules he is expected to observe. 3)The abuse of retrospective legislation, which not only cannot itself guide action, but undercuts the integrity of rules prospective in effect, since it puts them under the threat of retrospective change. 4)A failure to make rules understandable. 5)The enactment of contradictory rules. 6)Rules that require conduct beyond the powers of the affected party. 7) Introducing such frequent changes in the rules that the subject cannot orient his action by them. 8) A failure of congruence between the rules as announced and their actual administration.