PLATO’S CRETAN CITY (SUMMARY)

In the beginning of the fifth chapter of Glenn R. Morrow’s

Plato's Cretan City: A Historical Interpretation of the Laws,
Cleinias, one of the elders in the book, posed this question: "Tell
us more clearly, what kind of constitution you have in mind to set
up. Will it be a democracy, an -oligarchy, an aristocracy, or a
kingship?" Here begins the examination of the organs of Greek
government system that was prevalent in Plato’s time.
The first organ is the Assembly and the Council in which
“admission to it is the privilege of alI citizens” including those
in the military and women. Plato's assembly is to have regular
meetings fixed by law and its chief function is the election of
officers. Other functions of the Assembly include having to “share
in the decision” in meting out punishments to those who are accused
and having to make awards of merit. Another organ in Plato’s
constitution is the Magistrates, which are elected in an assembly
of all the citizens. The Magistrates are ranked according to the
rules of their policing and protection of the various parts of the
city and countryside: astynomoi for the city proper and its suburbs
; agoranomoi for the civic center, the agora; agronomoi for the
country; and priests and priestesses in charge of the temples and
sacred areas. Next to the Magistrates are the "guardians of the
laws," or "guardians." This organ of the constitution are composed
of thirty-seven members, chosen from citizens fifty years old or
older and each holds an office from the time of his election until
he reaches the age of seventy. The main function of this organ
according to Plato is to “guard” the laws and the registers of
property. Also, they are to act as a court to try persons accused
of having more than the amount of property reported. Plato also
noted that the guardians also act as a kind of legislative
commission to revise and supplement the laws formulated by the

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legislator at the beginning. After the “guardians” are the organ
that is response in the scrutiny and audit of the constitution.
According to Plato, “every official is required to undergo two
public examinations, a scrutiny immediately after his election and
before he takes office, and an audit at the end of his term. The
one thing that Plato wanted to ensure with this organ of his State
is for every elected official to be held accountable for their
actions. The author of this book claims that Plato’s account of
the offices and their specific functions is at many points
incomplete. He argues that these gaps in the presentation of each
member’s role and duties may have been Plato’s intention.
Nonetheless, with all these unanswered questions, Plato's basic
intentions are clear, the author further argues. For Plato, the
demos must be sovereign in certain matters, but it is not to rule:
“It is sovereign over questions of war and peace; it has to give
approval to some changes in the laws, perhaps to all changes in
the basic law; and it has the right, with rare exceptions to choose
its officials, subject to control by the procedure of dokimasia.
In other words, what Plato proposed to be the ideal government is
an “aristocracy with the approval of the people.”
The sixth chapter of this book describes Plato’s proposals
for the administration of justice as part of the law establishing
"the offices.” The author noted that Plato lived in the history of
Greece where most legal issues were settled in court; it goes to
say that the legal system has already been established as a result
of a long process of development. For Plato, justice is
administered by three bodies: justice before the Magistrates, the
Courts, and the Procedure. The chief function of all magistrates
is to “guard the city,” a duty that carries with it the right to
punish for violations of the law and for breaches of public order
in the various areas under their control. However, the author
suggests that in spite of its prescribed role, the judicial

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capacity of the magistrates is limited, at least in the punishment
of citizens. Regarding the power of the Courts to administer
justice, it is evident that in the time of Plato, it was the
distinctive feature of the administration of justice at Athens to
bow down to the supremacy of the popular courts and or to the large
bodies of judges. “These courts were not only the highest tribunals
in the state, from which there was no appeal; they were practically
the only tribunals.” The last system that Plato suggested in the
administration of justice is procedural. The author argues that
Plato’s style is a departure from the Attic law. It is evident
that while most of Plato’s procedural processes follow the Attic
precedents, Plato had expressed numerous important innovations
especially on the execution of judgments on private suits.
These two chapters of this book, the author discusses in
detail the ideal government Plato has envisioned. In the end,
however, the author argued that “in all these provisions, Plato's
law, while still essentially Attic in character, embodies a
conception of the judicial process broader and more enlightened
than ever characterized Athenian practice at its best.”

ON THE PHILIPPINE GOVERNMENT SYSTEM

The Official Gazette describes the Philippine government

system as “a republic with a presidential form of government
wherein power is equally divided among its three branches:
executive, legislative, and judicial.” The Legislative branch is
tasked to make laws, alter, and repeal them through the power
vested in the Philippine Congress. This branch has two divisions;
the Senate and the House of Representatives. In the Executive
branch, the President and the Vice President are elected by direct
popular vote and will serve a 6-year term. The President is granted
by the Constitution to appoint his or her Cabinet. The last branch,

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the Judicial branch, is granted by the Constitution to settle
issues involving rights that legally demandable and enforceable.
This branch has two divisions: the Supreme Court and the lower
courts.

CONCLUSION