By: Prof. Dr. Camilo Alfonso Escobar Mora, founder of LEGADLLY, an executive program for lawyers on legal validity and the effectiveness of the Rule of Law, with examples of digital advertising — legadlly.ca.
Contact: camilolaw@legadlly.ca

Lawyers must move beyond an understanding of law based on “branches/areas.” Of course, we may have specialized fields of practice, but law is (only) one. We should stop thinking that “public law” exists on one side and “private law” on the other; or that progress consists of a “flight from private law to public law,” or vice versa; or that the great advance is the “constitutionalization of law” or “human rights” (without disregarding their invaluable contributions); or that due process is whatever an authority dictates without juridical validity. Rights and duties are one and the same, and, as such, freedom is one as well, including its limit, juridically.

Many legal problems have been addressed in an anti-juridical way, even when the intention was legal, due to ignorance of the law and, in general, neglect of it. The era of anti-juridical formalism has not ended, nor has the longing to “be free.” The tension between the public and the private is necessary, but it is culpably misunderstood through radicalism. No one has demonstrated peace—that is, the true form of juridical harmony—and therefore a stable order, whether from “right-wing” or “left-wing,” “liberal” or “conservative,” “federal” or “centralist,” “nationalist” or “homogenizing” positions, etc. Law is a balance; that is why freedom is possible—because justice is what is adjusted to the juridical, and it exists when one is free/limited in accordance with the whole of the juridical ought-to-be.

Let us dare to recognize this and achieve legal solutions, not illusions of conflict resolution based on anti-juridical “negotiations.” Properly speaking, let us enforce the law: conflict is exceptional, and when it occurs it must be handled in the initial case; a new “corrective” case (a process) is juridically extraordinary. Let us stop claiming that there is a (radical) separation of public powers, or between the public and private sectors. They coexist—that is the Rule of Law—when action is taken with validity, that is, by exercising freedom in each legal relationship. This has no end: law (freedom—juridical/valid/viable/necessary/effective) becomes clearer over time, but its foundations are sufficient for juridical harmonization; progress lies in simplifying the way it is generated.

The juridical dynamics of advertising—for example, digital commercial advertising—make it possible to clarify legal issues, as it operates within a global, complex, and uncertain context, where many elements of law are implicit a priori. Determining legal nature is not merely about detecting essential, natural, and accidental elements in the abstract and on the basis of pre-established categories; each case is unique, “exotic.” There are references—the principles and rules of law—whose combination forms norms, and this is decisive; however, their juridical background must be clarified in order to know them and comply with their requirements. Assertions of antinomies and legal/juridical gaps have unnecessarily complicated this; law has no gaps—it applies according to the case; it is universal and useful.

Law is the juridical ought-to-be, that is, the way to make legal relationships viable; the opposite is the absence of a solution and the escalation of the problem. We even have optimization tools, such as what is known as legaltech, when it is valid, to achieve this (when used diligently, in accordance with our profile). Lawyers, as legal professionals, are the ones who must possess knowledge of the law and the professional capacity to apply it; only when we have that capacity are we truly lawyers. The world offers an attractive, challenging, and peace-oriented outlook through the legal challenges of the digital sphere. Advertising (for example, commercial advertising) is an “exquisite” source for simplifying (organizing, decoding—making explicit/clear—pinpointing/concretizing/specifying) the law, universally.