‘Rule of law a fragile thing.’ Columbia judges, lawyers gather for Law Day
May 1 is National Law Day, and dozens of Columbia area lawyers, two federal judges and a Richland County magistrate gathered Friday in front of the Matthew Perry federal courthouse near downtown to commemorate America’s rule of law.
The Declaration of Independence, signed 250 years ago, does much more than just declare our separation from Great Britain, said Steven Austermiller, executive director of the University of South Carolina Rule of Law Collaborative.
“It asserted a fundamental principle that power must remain accountable, and that law is an instrument of peoples’ sovereignty. The rule of law is what gives principle and force and meaning to this declaration,” said Austermiller, whose group works to promote the rule of law and independent judiciaries around the world, including in emerging democracies.
“In most of the places we work, the rule of law is a fragile thing,” he said. “There is not a tradition like what we have in the U.S.”
The nation of Georgia appeared to make great strides in having a more modern and accountable judicial and legal system, but in recent years the rule of law in that country has deteriorated, Austermiller said.
Georgia just didn’t have a long tradition of dedication to the rule of law like we have, Austermiller said.
“I have found that around the world, lawyers and judges in America are considered the gold standard,” he said. “We have over the decades, maybe in an imperfect way, we have shown the world how to establish the rule of law and how to keep it going for hundreds of years now.”
Acknowledging that these are times of “deep division and declining trust in our institutions,” the rule of law remains something Americans can believe in and “is kind of our superpower,” he said.
Richland County magistrate Allyce Bailey told the gathering, “Law Day reminds us that the rule of law is not automatic. It is not self-sustaining. It depends every day on institutions, lawyers, judges and citizens who are willing to uphold it protect it and pass it forward.”
This year, Bailey said, the rule of law has a special significance because it is the 250th anniversary year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a document that articulated enduring principles about liberty, accountability, lawful governance — “principles that remain foundational to the rule of law today.”
U.S. District Judge Joseph Anderson led the attorneys in reciting the Lawyers’ Oath, a pledge that new lawyers take. It includes a promise to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of this state and of the United States.”
The oath commits attorneys to not pursuing causes that are unjust and acting civilly, and with fairness and integrity.
“It’s appropriate for us to commemorate the rule of law,” said veteran Columbia lawyer Joel Collins, recalling that commemorations of the rule of law started as a reaction to celebrations of May Day in communist countries. Collins also teaches a class on the Constitution at the University of South Carolina.
Attorney Deborah Barbier, a former federal prosecutor, said in a text after the ceremony that the rule of law “is the foundation of a free and just society. It ensures that no one is above the law, that rights are protected, and that disputes are resolved fairly rather than by power or force.”
About 50 members of the local legal community, including U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, participated in the ceremony in the front courtyard of the federal courthouse. There might have been more people, but skies threatened rain.
Event sponsors were the Richland County Bar Association, the S.C. Black Lawyers Association, the S.C. Women Lawyers Association, the S.C. Association for Justice, and the Burnette Shutt & McDaniel law firm.