Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Wanjiru Njoya
“In The Constitution of Liberty, Friedrich Hayek argued that ‘mere legality in all government action’ does not suffice as a basis for upholding the rule of law. Under a standard of mere legality, as long as a law is on the statute books, anything done in accordance with that law is legal. Mere legality also implies that as long as there is a plausible way of spinning state actions to bring them within the wording of a statute, that should suffice to make it legal. This would enable tyrants to read anything they want into the law, giving them a plausible foundation to depict all their actions as perfectly legal. Hayek warned that this would turn the law itself into a threat to individual liberty, which in his view would undermine the very purpose of the law.” (07/15/25)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/why-hayek-rejected-mere-legality