On the rule of law: What it is, why it matters, and what threatens it

On 11 August, the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights released an unsung but remarkable critique of the governments bill to allow dual nationals to be stripped of their Australian citizenship. Again and again, the committee finds that the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Allegiance to Australia) Bill ignores, overrides or subverts a swathe of human rights, both substantive and procedural. What is the significance of that? Is it just technical legal stuff, which ordinary folks neednt bother about? Or is there something more at stake? I think so. Underlying the committees meticulously detailed filleting of the bill is an implicit but fundamental concern: the bill is serially and seriously incompatible with the rule of law