Rule of law

The principle that the process of government is bound up with the law, and that law is supreme. In specific operational terms, it envisages that a government in power must act according to law, and that by implication it gives every citizen remedies if his or her rights are infringed. The rule of law may, therefore, be said to prevail when the exercise of all forms of public authority is subject to review by the ordinary courts of law to which all citizens have equal access. The pattern of the rule of law varies from country to country. The general principles ensuring the rule of law in England are mostly the results of judicial decisions in particular cases brought before the courts as well as the natural rights of the Englishmen which have been declared in Magna Carta (1215), the Petition of Rights ( 1628 ), and The Bill Of  Rights (1689). English traditions, conventions, usages and the long history of the evolution of the English political institutions have molded English awareness of individual rights which are as sacred and inviolable as the constitutionally written characters of many newly emergent nations.