The Rule Of Law

"The Rule of Law, in its most basic form, is the principle that no one is above the law. The rule follows logically from the idea that truth, and therefore law, is based upon fundamental principles which can be discovered, but which cannot be created through an act of will.

The most important application of the rule of law is the principle that governmental authority is legitimately exercised only in accordance with written, publicly disclosed laws adopted and enforced in accordance with established procedural steps that are referred to as due process. The principle is intended to be a safeguard against arbitrary governance, whether by a totalitarian leader or by mob rule. Thus, the rule of law is hostile both to dictatorship and to anarchy."

See Lexus Nexis.

According to Wikipedia, "The rule of law is a legal concept which includes a number of interrelated principles. First, protecting the rule of law ensures that no one is above the law. Thomas Paine stated in his pamphlet Common Sense (1776): "For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other."

Alternatively, the phrase 'the rule of law' is better understood by translation into French. It is rendered in the 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as "la primauté du droit". The term "droit" also appears in the motto emblazoned upon the Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom, to wit, "Dieu et mon Droit". "Droit" or "droict", in old Law French, is a term meaning, in that context, "the whole body of the law"^[1].

In England, the issuing of the Magna Carta was a prime example of the "rule of law." The Great Charter forced King John to submit to the law and succeeded in putting limits on feudal fees and duties. Another earlier example was Islamic law and jurisprudence, which recognized the equal subjection of all classes, including caliphs and sultans, to the ordinary law of the land.^[2]

Perhaps the most important application of the rule of law is the principle that governmental authority is legitimately exercised only in accordance with written, publicly disclosed laws adopted and enforced in accordance with established procedural steps that are referred to as due process. The principle is intended to be a safeguard against arbitrary governance, whether by a totalitarian leader or by mob rule. Thus, the rule of law is hostile both to dictatorship and to anarchy. Samuel Rutherford was one of the first modern authors to give the principle theoretical foundations, in Lex, Rex (1644), and later Montesquieu in The Spirit of the Laws (1748).

In continental Europe and legal thinking, the rule of law has frequently, but not always, been associated with a Rechtsstaat. According to modern Anglo-American thinking, hallmarks of adherence to the rule of law commonly include a clear separation of powers, legal certainty, the principle of legitimate expectation and equality of all before the law.

The concept is not without controversy, and it has been said that "the phrase 'the Rule of Law' has become meaningless thanks to ideological abuse and general over-use".^[3]"

When parties to a controversy seek to put forward or defend their respective positions especially in political or governance matters by referring to "the Rule of Law", sometimes they may not realise that it is actually quite obvious even to the layman who is unschooled in law that certain positions which they take are so grounded in hypocrisy that for them to justify the same by reference to "the Rule of Law" is sheer abuse of the very concept.

Nazrin's call to youth to "uphold the Rule of Law" falls within this category, both for sheer hypocrisy as well as sheer abuse of the highest order, given his position and qualifications.

"The rule of law must be upheld, and institutions established through and in accordance with the law must be respected in propagating a culture of peace", this is what he said. This is true, but cannot be used to justify abuse of process.

"A lawless system breeds a lawless culture, which in turn, suggests lawless governance and lawless governments". This is what he also said, forgetting that lawlessness on the part of the rulers and governments themselves who ignore the Rule of Law spawns and breeds rebellion of the unjustly governed, the people.

Can they blame the people then who see them trying to justify their own actions by reference to the purported "Rule of Law" which they seek to impose upon the people against their will and in complete defiance of the very principles of law and jurisprudence?

Until such self-interested hypocrisy is stopped, mere "rebellion" (which is really an exertion of the people's will against injustice and oppression) may lead to revolution.