Rule of Law

The rule of law is a political and jurisprudential construct that describes normative limitations on the ability of a state to impose and enforce legal obligations on its citizens. Popularly, the ideal of the rule of law holds that the state should govern through general and neutral laws that are enforced consistently by state actors who are bound by those legal structures. The antithesis of the rule of law is arbitrary exercise of power by individuals, groups, or bureaucracies and other state actors. The classic articulation of this concept is that a political unit should be governed by “the rule of law, not of men” with the ideal of equality before the law. Beyond these general propositions, however, there is substantial disagreement over the nature ...