The Rule of Law essays

The Rule of Law essays The rule of law, although popularised by Dicey was not invented by him. Prior and Post Dicey, different theorists had considered it, namely, Von Hayek, Socrates, Raz and E.P Thompson. In 1885, A.V Diceys book supported the theory of the English constitution as opposed to the written constitutions of other countries. However, there have been schools of thought that Diceys ideas are now outdated but recently, especially with the senior members of the judiciary, they have come back into favour. It is common knowledge that Britains constitution is an unwritten one as it is not contained in one document and much of it has no legal status. The Diceyan argument was that not only was this irrelevant, but it was in fact of beneficial advantage. Dicey summarised the concept of he rule of law under three headings. Primarily, the principle concerned the rule of law and discretionary powers. Dicey believed that regular law was absolutely predominant over abritary and wide discretionary powers. That is all government actions must be authorised by the law. No person could be punished or interfered with by the authorities unless the law authorised it. This concept was in direct contrast with the situation in England, where there were no rules. The government could do as it pleased and there would be no legal controls over its activities. Example would be lack of trial before punishment. Entick v Carrington illuminates the concept that, the governments should not possess wide discretionary powers. In this case, the courts declared that the secretary of state could not order the search of Enticks house, because there was no law that authorised such searches. The court rejected the arguments of state necessity or that there was one law for government activities and another for ordinary people. This judgement was in accord with the rule of law. However, the more recent case of Malone v Metropolitan Police Commiss ...