States of Emergency - Centre for Policy Alternatives

was the cultural and political ethos of the Roman citizenry which
would not tolerate tyranny. Machiavelli fully contemplated the
constitutional regulation of emergency powers, but he
emphasised the signiLicance of the disposition of the public to
reject unconstitutional behaviour as the ultimate guarantee of
constitutional government, and especially of the emergency
institutions. 24
Thus as Gross and Ní Aoláin conclude, “The institution of the
dictatorship was alien to the basic constitutional structure of the
republic. The system of ofLicers coequal in their powers and able
to fully veto each other’s decisions and actions could not
comfortably exist with the vesting of absolute power in a single
person. The notion of sharing the burdens of governance was
clearly at odds with the dictatorship. Hence, although giving the
dictator all the powers needed to defend the republic against its
enemies, well‐deLined constitutional restrictions were laid out in
order to prevent unwarranted aggrandizement and abuse of the
powers of the dictator…” 25
The emergency institutional framework of the Roman republic
was the Lirst known attempt at constitutionally accommodating
and regulating the exercise of powers during a time of crisis. It
recognised that crises required extraordinary measures, and that
the State must be empowered to preserve and protect the
constitutional order. However, this was not to be allowed at the
expense of the constitutional order itself, resulting in the
establishment of devices that balanced the competing policy
objectives within an institutional framework of checks and
balances.
24
Machiavelli (1996), op cit., pp.74, 77
25
Gross and Ní Aoláin: pp.20‐21
39