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What Makes a “Law” Valid?
- 02 October 2012
- 0:44 GMT
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by Michael Peroutka, the Institute on the Constitution
Americans are generally lost when it comes to understanding what constitutes law—and what doesn’t.
Generally, in order for some action of the legislature, or the executive, or the courts to be valid and enforceable, it needs to favorably pass two tests:
First, it must not violate what our founders called “The Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” Briefly stated, it must be moral.
Secondly, it must not violate the Constitution of these United States. The Constitution limits government authority by enumerating specifically those powers delegated to it by the various states and their people.
If an action of government violates either of these standards, it is no law at all. (We can call it “pretended legislation.”) It is void from the beginning. It doesn’t require a court to declare it to be null and void, though a court may eventually do so. It is void by reason of its conflict with one or both of these fixed standards.
At one time in our history, this was widely understood. However, in recent years, Americans have largely forgotten the fact that purported laws draw their efficacy—their validity—from adherence to these two fixed standards. And today these two critical standards are not known or applied by most Americans to the actions of government, because these two critical standards are not studied or even known to the people.
Americans desperately need to be reintroduced to the Supreme Law of the Universe (the Bible) and the Supreme Law of the Land (The Constitution). These standards won’t be applied to the actions of legislatures and governors and judges unless they are known, respected, and defended by the people.
