Chapter 1 - The Importance of the Rule of Law

Question 1

How far can the idea behind the rule of law be traced back?

Answer 1

Aristotle

Question 2

What did Aristotle say when referring to the idea of the rule of law?

Answer 2

‘It is better for the law to rule than one of the citizens […] so even the guardians of the laws are obeying the laws’.

Question 3

What did Mr Justice Blackburn say about the rule of law in 1866?

Answer 3

‘It is contrary to the general rule of law, not only in this country, but in every other, to make a person judge in his own cause…’

Question 4

When and how was the phrase ‘The Supremacy of the Law’ used?

Answer 4

As a paragraph heading in 1867.

Question 5

What is Dicey’s first definition of the rule of law?

Answer 5

‘No man is punishable or can lawfully be made to suffer in body or goods except for a distinct breach of law established in the ordinary legal manner before the ordinary courts of the land.

Question 6

What is Dicey’s second definition of the rule of law?

Answer 6

No one is above the law.

Question 7

In 1733, what did Dr Thomas Fuller say about the law?

Answer 7

‘Be you never so high, the Law is above you.’

Question 8

What is Dicey’s third definition of the rule of law?

Answer 8

As a special attribute of English institutions.

Question 9

Why would Dicey have had mixed views on the Human Rights Act 1998?

Answer 9

He had no belief in grand declarations of principle, preferring to rely on the slow, incremental process of common law decision-making, judge by judge, case by case.

Question 10

What does Professor Raz say about the rule of law?

Answer 10

There is a tenancy to use it as a shorthand description of the positive aspects of any given political system.

Question 11

How does Professor Finnis describe the rule of law?

Answer 11

‘The name commonly given to the state of affairs in which a legal system is legally in good shape.’

Question 12

What does Professor Shklar say about the expression ‘the rule of law’?

Answer 12

It has become meaningless due to overuse. A self-congratulatory phrase used by politicians.

Question 13

What does Thomas Carothers say about the rule of law?

Answer 13

It means ‘hooray for our side’ in politics.

Question 14

What does Professor Brian Tamanaha say about the rule of law?

Answer 14

Points to the notion of good which everyone is for but everyone has a different idea of what it is.

Question 15

The European Convention of Human Rights 1950 (of which the UK was the first signatory) said that all European countries have what in common?

Answer 15

A common heritage of political traditions, ideals, freedom and the rule of law.

Question 16

What must the Lord Chancellor swear to respect upon taking office?

Answer 16

The rule of law

Question 17

Who are the two people to which Bingham owes his own formulation of the rule of law?

Answer 17

Dicey

The great English philosopher John Locke 1690

Question 18

What did the great English philosopher John Locke say in 1690?

Answer 18

‘Wherever law ends, tyranny begins.’

Question 19

In 1776, Tom Paine said what?

Answer 19

‘In America, the law is King. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries, the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.’

Question 20

To whom is credit usually given for coining the expressing 'the rule of law'?
Name
Job
University
Book
Date

Answer 20

Professor A. V. Dicey
Professor of English Law
Oxford University
An Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution
1885