When Law Ceases to Be a Limit: Animal Farm and Orwell’s Warning to the Rule of Law by: Joana Capaz Coelho Published in 1945, Animal Farm, by George Orwell, is often read as a satire of the Russian Revolution, but its true strength lies in the fact that it transcends that historical framework and asserts itself as a timeless reflection on power, its corruption, and the fragility of the legal structures that are meant to restrain it. The narrative begins with a diagnosis of structural injustice: “ our lives are miserable, laborious, and short ”, declares Old Major, denouncing an order in which “ the produce of our labour is stolen by human beings ”. The revolt that follows is not presented as “ a mere impulse ” of ideology, but as a reaction to a situation of exploitation and inequality, grounded in an ideal that appears unassailable: “All animals are equal ”. This proclamation functions as the normative foundation of the new community, a kind of “constitutional princ...