legalistic

Princeton Professor Kim Lane Scheppele described what she calls “’legalistic autocrats’ who deploy the law to achieve their aims” and seek to “use constitutionalism and democracy to destroy both.”

Schepple said, “We can spot the legalistic autocrats while they are still consolidating power because they have ambitions to monopolize power and tend to use the same toolbox of tricks.”

But the Thiam saga shows how identity issues, even in a more legalistic form and in this hopefully more peaceful era, can still weigh heavily.

Ensign, the DOJ lawyer, tried to distract Boasberg with legalistic arguments claiming that it had not technically violated his commands.

She said that "Blair and Brown had imposed a web of legalistic architecture that added process and put more power in the hands of technocrats", which granted is a point where you might think Truss and Starmer would depart and no doubt do in many instances.