3 Basic Principles of Rule of Law

(a) Dicey's three principlesA.V. Dicey, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (1885):1. Supremacy of regular law — no punishment except for a breach of law established in the ordinary courts; "no man is punishable... except for a distinct breach of law established in the ordinary legal manner before the ordinary courts of the land." Absolutism and arbitrary prerogative are excluded.2. Equality before the law — every man, whatever his rank, is subject to the ordinary law and the ordinary courts; officials answer in the same courts under the same law as citizens ("officialdom" enjoys no special exemption).3. Predominance of legal spirit / constitution as consequence of rights — rights are not derived from written constitutions but from judicial decisions; the constitution is the result of the individual rights recognized by the courts (England's self-generated legal order).Critiques of Dicey (essential for full marks):• The welfare state needs discretion (licences, planning, taxation) — Dicey's zero-discretion model is obsolete; modern doctrine substitutes controlled discretion (hearing, reasons, reviewability);• Dicey's hostility to administrative tribunals and droit administratif misread French administrative law (which also limits power, by different means);• Equality before the law is incomplete without equality in the law (formal equality tolerates substantive inequality — hence modern anti-discrimination and affirmative provisions);• The third principle is parochial — it mistakes England's unwritten…