pseudolegality

English

Alternative forms

• pseudo-legality

Etymology

pseudo- +‎ legality

Noun

pseudolegality (uncountable)

1. The appearance of legality of something that is not actually legal; The use of courts, police, or legal procedures to accomplish pseudolegal results.
   • 2003, Peter C. Caldwell, Dictatorship, State Planning, and Social Theory in the German Democratic Republic, page 12:

     Legal theorists began asking in the 1950s how the legal system in the GDR, characterized as it was by a one-party state armed with extraordinary powers, differed from the pseudolegality of National Socialist Germany.

   • 2015, Rosemary Sullivan, Stalin's Daughter, →ISBN, page 87:

     One of the devices of all dictatorships is the pseudolegality of the judicial system under which the most grotesque crimes are committed.

   • 2015, Peter Hayes, How Was It Possible?: A Holocaust Reader:

     In this phase when the National Socialist regime was still attempting to consolidate its power, the pseudolegality of the entire procedure was both an essential feature of totalitarian rule and an aspect in keeping with the unavoidable consideration given to the foreign policy situation and the attitude of the majority of the population.

Usage notes

A core concept regarding the difference between legality and pseudolegality is that without rule of law, legality has no sound basis, and thus asserted legality is only pseudolegality.