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The Rule of Law

The document discusses the rule of law and its principles. It outlines three principles of the rule of law according to Professor A.V. Dicey: supremacy of law, equality before law, and predominance of legal spirit. For each principle, it provides details on Dicey's definition and interpretation.

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Aqeel Sargana
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38 views2 pages

The Rule of Law

The document discusses the rule of law and its principles. It outlines three principles of the rule of law according to Professor A.V. Dicey: supremacy of law, equality before law, and predominance of legal spirit. For each principle, it provides details on Dicey's definition and interpretation.

Uploaded by

Aqeel Sargana
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Introduction

The 'rule of law' is widely accepted to be a critical part of an effective constitution; its principle
function is to constrain government action. There is a significant disagreement initially on how to
define the rule of law.

The rule of law has been referred to as a „wrapper‟ that is placed around a bundle of
constitutional principles. At one extreme, the rule of law is merely a rhetorical device or a
political philosophy and its content is unimportant (the content-free view). At the other extreme,
the rule of law determines the validity of law and so laws that conflict with its principles are
invalid (content-rich view).

In the UK, the rule of law functions in two ways: firstly, that courts should interpret legislation
in a way that gives effect to the rule of law; secondly, that the rule of law Ideas about the rule of
law have been central to political and legal thought since at least the 4th century BCE, when
Aristotle distinguished “the rule of law” from “that of any individual.” In the 18th century the
French political philosopher Montesquieu In general, the rule of law implies that the creation of
laws, their enforcement, and the relationships among legal rules are themselves legally regulated,
so that no one—including the most highly placed official—is above the law. The legal constraint
on rulers means that the government is subject to existing laws as much as its citizens are. Thus,
a closely related notion is the idea of equality before the law, which holds that no “legal” person
elaborated a doctrine of the rule of law that contrasted the legitimate authority of monarchs with
the semis? Of sweets. - It has since profoundly influenced Western liberal thought shall enjoy
privileges that are not extended to all and that no person shall be immune from legal sanctions. In
addition, the application and adjudication of legal rules by various governing officials are to be
impartial and consistent across equivalent cases, made blindly without taking into consideration
the class, status, or relative power among disputants. In order for those ideas to have any real
purchase, moreover, there should be in place some legal apparatus for compelling officials to
submit to the law.

In 1885, Professor A.V Dicey developed this concept of Coke and propounded three principles
or postulates of the rule of law in his classic book ~Law and the Constitution."

According to Professor A.V Dicey, for achieving supremacy of law three principles of postulates
must be followed which are as follows:

Supremacy of law,

Equality before law and

Predominance of Legal Spirit


1. Supremacy of law

As per the first postulate, rule of law refers to the lacking of arbitrariness or wide discretionary
power. In order to understand it simply, every man should be governed by law. According to
Dicey, English men were ruled by the law and the law alone and also where there is room for
arbitrariness and that in a republic no less than under a monarchy discretionary authority on the
part of the Government must mean insecurity for legal freedom on the part of its subjects. There
must be absence of wide discretionary powers on the rulers so that they cannot make their own
laws but must be governed according to the established laws.

2. Equality before law

According to the second principle of Dicey, equality before law and equal subjection of all
classes to the ordinary law of land to be administered by the ordinary law courts and this
principle emphasizes everyone which included government as well irrespective of their position
or rank. But such element is going through the phase of criticisms and is misguided. As stated by
Dicey, there must be equality before law or equal subjection of all classes to the ordinary law of
land. French legal system of Droit Administrative was also criticized by him as there were
separate tribunals for deciding the cases of state officials and citizens separately.

3. Predominance of Legal Spirit

Predominance of Legal Spirit or the Third meaning of the Rule of Law is the general principles
of the constitution are the result of juridical decisions determining file rights of private persons in
particular cases brought before the Court principle that no one is above the law.

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