report The rule of law has been considered one of the key dimensions that determine the quality and
good governance of a country. Research, like the
Worldwide Governance Indicators, defines the rule of law as "the extent to which agents have confidence and abide by the rules of society, and in particular the quality of contract enforcement, the police and the courts, as well as the likelihood of crime or violence." Other evaluations such as the
World Justice Project Rule of Law Index show that adherence to rule of law fell in 61% of countries in 2022. Globally, this means that 4.4 billion people live in countries where rule of law declined in 2021. Lapses in the rule of law can arise in conflict between two or more countries.
Europe The preamble of the rule of law
European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms says "the governments of European countries which are like-minded and have a common heritage of political traditions, ideals, freedom and the rule of law". In France and Germany the concepts of rule of law (
Etat de droit and
Rechtsstaat respectively) are analogous to the principles of constitutional supremacy and protection of fundamental rights from public authorities, particularly the
legislature. France was one of the early pioneers of the ideas of the rule of law. The German interpretation is more rigid but similar to that of France and the United Kingdom.
United Kingdom In the United Kingdom the rule of law is a long-standing principle of the way the country is governed, dating from England's
Magna Carta in 1215 and the
Bill of Rights 1689. In the 19th century classic work
Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (1885),
A. V. Dicey, a constitutional scholar and lawyer, wrote of the twin pillars of the
British constitution: the rule of law and
parliamentary sovereignty.
Americas United States All government officers of the United States, including the
President,
Justices of the Supreme Court, state judges and legislators, and all
members of Congress, pledge first and foremost to uphold the
Constitution, affirming that the rule of law is superior to the rule of any human leader. At the same time, the
federal government has considerable discretion: the legislative branch is free to decide what statutes it will write, as long as it stays within its
enumerated powers and respects the constitutionally protected
rights of individuals. Likewise, the judicial branch has a degree of
judicial discretion, and the executive branch also has various discretionary powers including
prosecutorial discretion.
James Wilson said during the
Philadelphia Convention in 1787 that, "Laws may be unjust, may be unwise, may be dangerous, may be destructive; and yet not be so unconstitutional as to justify the Judges in refusing to give them effect."
George Mason agreed that judges "could declare an unconstitutional law void. But with regard to every law, however unjust, oppressive or pernicious, which did not come plainly under this description, they would be under the necessity as judges to give it a free course." Chief Justice
John Marshall a similar position in 1827: "When its existence as law is denied, that existence cannot be proved by showing what are the qualities of a law." Scholars continue to debate whether the U.S. Constitution adopted a particular interpretation of the "rule of law", and if so, which one. For example, John Harrison asserts that the word "law" in the Constitution is simply defined as that which is legally binding, rather than being "defined by formal or substantive criteria", and therefore judges do not have discretion to decide that laws fail to satisfy such unwritten and vague criteria. Law professor
Frederick Mark Gedicks disagrees, writing that
Cicero,
Augustine,
Thomas Aquinas, and the framers of the U.S. Constitution believed that "
an unjust law was not really a law at all". Some modern scholars contend that the rule of law has been corroded during the past century by the instrumental view of law promoted by
legal realists such as
Oliver Wendell Holmes and
Roscoe Pound. For example, Brian Tamanaha asserts: "The rule of law is a centuries-old ideal, but the notion that law is a means to an end became entrenched only in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries." Others argue that the rule of law has survived but was transformed to allow for the exercise of discretion by administrators. For much of American history, the dominant notion of the rule of law in
administrative law has been some version of Dicey's, that is, individuals should be able to challenge an administrative order by bringing suit in a court of general jurisdiction. The increased number of administrative cases led to fears that excess judicial oversight over administrative decisions would overwhelm the courts and destroy the advantages of specialization that led to the creation of administrative agencies in the first place. By 1941, a compromise had emerged. If administrators adopted procedures that more or less tracked "the ordinary legal manner" of the courts, further review of the facts by "the ordinary Courts of the land" was unnecessary. Thus Dicey's rule of law was recast into a purely procedural form. Numerous definitions of "rule of law" are used in United States governmental bodies. An organization's definition might depend on that organization's goal. For instance,
military occupation or
counterinsurgency campaigns may necessitate prioritising physical security over human rights. U.S. Army doctrine and U.S. Government (USG) interagency agreements might see the rule of law as a principle of governance: Legal scholars have warned of the negative impact of this decision on the status of rule of law in the United States. Prior to that, in 1973 and 2000 the
Office of Legal Counsel within the
Department of Justice issued opinions saying that a
sitting president cannot be indicted or prosecuted, but it is constitutional to indict and try a former president for the same offenses for which the President was
impeached by the House of Representatives and
acquitted by the Senate under the
Impeachment Disqualification Clause of Article I, Section III. Trump's second term has raised concerns among experts, including the
American Bar Association, that the rule of law in the United States is seriously threatened. A particular point of concern is whether the administration will follow court orders.
Canada In Canada, the rule of law is associated with
A.V. Dicey's view. It is mentioned in the preamble to the
Constitution Act, 1982.
The Constitution of Canada is "similar in principle" to the
British constitution, and includes unwritten constitutional principles of democracy, judicial independence, federalism, constitutionalism and the rule of law, and the protection of minorities. In 1959,
Roncarelli v Duplessis, the
Supreme Court of Canada called the Rule of Law a "fundamental postulate" of the
Canadian Constitution. According to
Reference Re Secession of Quebec, it encompasses, "a sense of orderliness, of subjection to known legal rules and of executive accountability to legal authority." In
Canadian law, it means that the relationship between the state and the individual must be regulated by law and that the Constitution binds all governments, both
federal and provincial, including the
executive. With the adoption of the
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Canadian system of government was transformed to a significant extent from a system of Parliamentary supremacy to one of constitutional supremacy. The principle of the rule of law and
constitutionalism is aided by acknowledging that the constitution is
entrenched beyond simple
majority rule. However,
the notwithstanding clause operates to provide a limited "legislative override" of certain fundamental freedoms contained in the Charter, and has been invoked at different times by provincial legislatures. In
Canadian administrative law, "all exercises of public authority must find their source in law. All decision-making powers have legal limits, derived from the enabling statute itself, the common or civil law or the Constitution.
Judicial review is the means by which the courts supervise those who exercise statutory powers, to ensure that they do not overstep their legal authority. The function of judicial review is therefore to ensure the legality, the reasonableness and the fairness of the administrative process and its outcomes." Administrative decision makers must adopt a culture of justification and demonstrate that their exercise of delegated public power can be “justified to citizens in terms of rationality and fairness.”
Asia East Asian cultures are influenced by two schools of thought,
Confucianism, which advocated good governance as rule by leaders who are benevolent and virtuous, and
legalism, which advocated strict adherence to law. The influence of one school of thought over the other has varied throughout the centuries. One study indicates that throughout East Asia, only South Korea, Singapore, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong have societies that are robustly committed to a law-bound state. According to Awzar Thi, a member of the
Asian Human Rights Commission, the rule of law in Cambodia and most of Asia is weak or nonexistent: Apart from a number of states and territories, across the continent there is a huge gulf between the rule of law rhetoric and reality. In Thailand, the police force is favor over the rich and corrupted. In Cambodia, judges are proxies for the ruling political party ... That a judge may harbor political prejudice or apply the law unevenly are the smallest worries for an ordinary criminal defendant in Asia. More likely ones are: Will the police fabricate the evidence? Will the prosecutor bother to show up? Will the judge fall asleep? Will I be poisoned in prison? Will my case be completed within a decade? In countries such as China and Vietnam, the transition to a market economy has been a major factor in a move toward the rule of law, because the rule of law is important to foreign investors and to economic development. It remains unclear whether the rule of law in countries like China and Vietnam will be limited to commercial matters or will spill into other areas as well, and if so whether that spillover will enhance prospects for related values such as democracy and human rights.
China In China, the phrase fǎzhì (法治), which can be translated as "rule of law," means using the law as an instrument to facilitate social control. Late Qing dynasty legal reforms unsuccessfully sought to implement Western legal principles including the rule of law and judicial independence. Judicial independence further decreased in the
Republic of China under
Chiang Kai-shek per the
Kuomintang's policy of particization (
danghua), under which administrative judges were required to have "deep comprehension" of the KMT's principles. Despite the CCP's
Document 9 arguing that Western values have corrupted many people's understanding of the rule of law, the CCP has simultaneously endorsed governing the country in accordance with the rule of law. These factors likely suggest that the CCP is creating a rule of law with Chinese characteristics, which may simply entail modifying the Western notion of rule of law to best match China's unique political, social, and historical conditions. As Document 9 suggests, the CCP does not see judicial independence, separation of power, or constitutional forms of governance as defined by Western society, as suiting China's unique form of governance. This unique version of the rule of law with Chinese characteristics has led to different attempts to define China's method of governing the country by rule of law domestically and internationally. Although some people have criticized the Indian judiciary for its
judicial activism, others believe such actions are needed to safeguard the rule of law based on the Constitution as well as to preserve
judicial independence, an important part of the
basic structure doctrine.
Japan Japan had centuries of tradition prior to
World War II, during which there were laws, but they did not provide a central organizing principle for society, and they did not constrain the powers of government. As the 21st century began, the percentage of people who were lawyers and judges in Japan remained very low relative to western Europe and the United States, and legislation in Japan tended to be terse and general, leaving much discretion in the hands of bureaucrats.
Singapore ==Organisations==