Rule of Law
- Created by: Francesca
- Created on: 11-04-14 10:17
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- Rule of Law
- A system of rule where the relationship between the state and the individual is governed by law, protecting the individual from arbitrary state action
- Rule-based governance
- Individual freedom
- Features
- No one is above the law
- Always those effectively above the law e.g. monarch, foreign ambassadors and MPs
- Some MPs tried to use parliamentary privilege as a way of ending legal proceedings taken against them over expenses
- Always those effectively above the law e.g. monarch, foreign ambassadors and MPs
- Equality before the law - all subject to the same justice
- \No one can be punished without a trial
- Not maintained in practice - e.g. terrorist suspects subject to a range of punishments without trial under measures passed in 2001 including indefinite detention
- \No one can be punished without a trial
- Law is always applied
- Courts provide legal redress (setting right)
- However Parliament remains sovereign - statue law supreme
- Any legal precedent can be overturned by a simple Act of Parliament
- Court ruled that government had acted ultra vires and did not have legal power to freeze bank assets of suspected terrorists
- Government later passed parliamentary legislation to allow it to freeze such assets
- Court ruled that government had acted ultra vires and did not have legal power to freeze bank assets of suspected terrorists
- Any legal precedent can be overturned by a simple Act of Parliament
- However Parliament remains sovereign - statue law supreme
- No one is above the law
- A system of rule where the relationship between the state and the individual is governed by law, protecting the individual from arbitrary state action
- General principles of the constitution (e.g. personal freedoms) result from judges' decisions rather than parliamentary statue (common/case law)
- Key principle of UK constitution
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