rule of law

   In a free society, there is a concern to maintain human liberty in the face of increasing state activity. The problem is how on the one hand to provide powers for those in government to operate effectively, yet on the other hand to ensure that in exercising those powers they do not encroach arbitrarily upon the rights of individuals. Liberty is protected by the rule of law, the restriction of governmental activities as authorised by law. The idea of the rule of law therefore implies the moral and legal acceptance by government of certain restrictions upon its activities. Government recognises that justice demands that the rights of individuals must be respected. In essence, the rule of law is the network of legal rules which guide and restrain political behaviour.

   A. V. Dicey, the foremost constitutional lawyer of the late nineteenth century, was the person who most clearly articulated the idea of the rule of law. He saw it as the cardinal principle of government in a democratic system, one which seeks to equate law and justice. He discerned three ideas in the concept: equality before the law – the belief that no person should be punished except for a breach of the law, just as no person should be viewed as ‘above the law’; that laws are clearly published and accessible, so that everyone is capable of knowing what they are; and that, as the laws of the constitution, especially essential liberties, derive from judicial decisions based on common law, they cannot be removed.