The Rule of Law

In one line

Nobody in the State may do anything to anybody except because a law says so, and that law binds the official as it binds everyone else.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: the rule of law means the supremacy of law over the arbitrary exercise of power. Dicey gave it three meanings: the absolute supremacy of regular law as opposed to arbitrary power, so that no one is punished except for a distinct breach of law established before the ordinary courts; equality before the law, so that every person whatever his rank is subject to the ordinary law administered by the ordinary courts; and that in England the general principles of the constitution are the result of judicial decisions on the rights of private persons, so that the constitution is the consequence of individual rights and not their source. The phrase does not appear in the Constitution of India, but the idea is enacted in articles 13, 14, 21 and 265. MU has set the concept of the rule of law as a short note, so the three meanings and the Indian departures from them are the answer.

Why the law has this at all

Every State has power to arrest, to tax, to take land and to punish. The question a constitution must answer is whether that power is exercised because a rule permits it or because somebody in office wants it.

The rule of law is the answer that it must be the rule. It is not a right and it is not a remedy. It is a condition on how all rights and remedies operate, which is why it turns up as a phrase in judgments far more often than as a provision in the text.

That is also its weakness as an examination topic: because it is everywhere it is easy to write about it vaguely. A good answer states the three meanings, says which Indian law adopted, adapted and rejected, and names the articles that carry it.

Dicey's three meanings, and what India did

First, the supremacy of regular law. No person may be punished or made to suffer in body or goods except for a distinct breach of law established in the ordinary manner before the ordinary courts. The target is wide discretionary authority, because where there is discretion there is room for arbitrariness. India adopted this one and enacted it. It is the core of articles 21 and 265, and after Royappa it is inside article 14 too.

Second, equality before the law. No person is above the law; every person, whatever his rank, is subject to the ordinary law and to the ordinary courts. Dicey meant this partly as an attack on the French droit administratif, a separate body of administrative law applied by separate administrative courts, which he regarded as a privilege for officials.