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This is a case if the President is permitted to be above the law, then we no longer have a republic.

In a republic this rule ought to be observed: that the majority should not have the predominant power.

The Republic is open and tolerant but also knows how and when to be firm and make its values respected.

Lots of countries have great constitutions, but their leaders have a practice of ignoring the rules whenever they feel like it.

You have to accept the rule of law, even when it's inconvenient, if you're going to be a country that bides by the rule of law.

It's much better to have rules that we can actually live within. And absolute prohibitions, generally, are not the kind of rules that countries would live within.

We must not allow the practices of an anti-democratic State that abuses the powers of government to violate the human rights of Venezuelans.

Now one of two things is true: Either a republic is a desirable form of government, or else it is not.

A country's adhering to the rule of law does not mean that its citizens will not do bad things.

The very idea of the law in a constitutional republic involves the requisite that it be a rule, a guide, uniform, fixed and equal, for all, till changed by the same high political power which made it. This is what entitles it to its sovereign weight.