The rule of law

 

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One day everyone has to die and no one is immortal on this earth. God treats everyone equally and all the creations of god are regulated by uniform law. Same as law is necessary for the protection, peace, development and prosperity of any nation. Without law there can be no order and without order there can be no peace and progress. Without law society will be the part of jungle. Everyone will be wild, violent, and greedy and mighty has right will prevail. That's why law is mandatory for preventing injustice.

The first direct product of the common law system is the public law. The most important principle of it is the rule of law. The rule of law implies that government authority may only be exercised in accordance with written laws which are adopted through an established procedure. It means "government of laws and not of men." The principle is intended to be a safeguard against arbitrary rulings in individual cases. The doctrine does not speak anything about the 'justness' of the laws themselves, but simply how the legal system upholds the law.

The concept of rule of law is generally associated with several other concepts like:

(a) presumption of innocence - all individuals are innocent until proven otherwise;

(b) double jeopardy - individuals may only be punished once for every specific crime committed. Retrials may or may not be permitted on the grounds of new evidence;

(c) legal equality – all individuals are given the same rights without distinction to their social stature, religion, political opinions, etc.; and

(d) habeas corpus - term meaning 'you must have the body'. A person who is arrested has the right to be told what crimes he or she is accused of, and to request his or her custody be

reviewed by judicial authority. Persons unlawfully imprisoned have to be freed.

The classic description of the doctrine of rule of law by A. V. Dicey includes

All these are included as fundamental rights in Part III of Constitution of India.

(1) the absence of arbitrary powers on the part of the Government which always acts according to law,

(2) legal equality, that is, no man is above the law and that everyone is subject to the ordinary law of the land and is amenable to the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts and tribunals, and

(3) the customary and the common law rights of the people resulting in judicial decisions to form the general rules of constitutional law.

Basically, individual liberty was the outcome of the rule of law. It could not be affected except in accordance with law. The burden was, therefore, on the state or the public officials to show that their action affecting an individual is justified by law.

The success of the rule of law in England was due to the co-operation between the lawyers, the judiciary, and the Parliament. The rule of law and the sovereignty of Parliament worked harmoniously in their common attempt to limit the power of the executive.

But the basic weakness of the rule of law based on ordinary law is that the spirit of the rule of law is perverted when legislation results in unjust laws. With the freedom-loving tradition of the British people the principle of parliamentary sovereignty did not come into conflict with the rule of law because Parliament did not violate the spirit of the rule of law by unjust legislation.

Originally the rule of law merely protected the individual from the arbitrary actions of the state including the legislature. Later, the weaker sections of the society who are exploited by those who wielded power had to be protected by the state itself against private economic power. Inequality in societies had to be removed with a view to establishing an egalitarian order. The role of the state instead of being merely negative (abstaining from interfering with the liberties of the people) became positive (to protect the weak against the strong, the exploited against the exploiter and the poor against the rich).

In the International Congress of Jurists held in 1959 at New Delhi, the very first clause of the report of the First Committee reoriented the rule of law as follows: The function of the legislature in a free society under the rule of law is to create and maintain the conditions which will uphold the dignity of man as an individual. This dignity requires not only the recognition of his civil and political rights but also the establishment of the social, economic and educational and cultural conditions which are essential to the full development of his personality.

In concrete terms in India it meant that legislation to bring about equality and social welfare to implement the directive principles of state policy set out in Part IV of the Constitution would also be construed as conducive to the broader concept of the rule of law and, therefore, in consonance with the fundamental rights of the individual guaranteed by Part III of the Constitution.

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