The Rule of Law

The expression ‘rule of law’ is regularly appropriated by those pushing socialist agendas. They do this for two reasons: firstly, to claim legitimacy for concepts averse to freedom, and secondly, to weaken the concept of the rule of law itself by rendering it...

The rule of law requires that the due process of the law be respected. However, before this can be done it must first be understood what ‘due process’ is. In this regard there has been great confusion, particularly in the United States. True due process The due...

The hierarchy of laws is the relative ranking of the five different types of laws. These are (in order of precedence): the constitution; legislation passed by initiative; legislation passed by the legislature; delegated legislation; the Common Law. Law courts enforce...

Natural rights are a man’s right to his life, limbs, and liberty; his right to the produce of his personal labor; to the use, in common with others, of air, light, water. If a thousand different persons, from a thousand different corners of the world, were cast...

What crime would it have been in any Roman, or body of Romans, even without any commission from Rome, to have slain Alarick, or Attila, or Brennus, when they invaded the Roman territories? And what more right had Caesar than they? In truth, his crime was infinitely...

Let this be the distinctive mark of an American that in cases of commotion, he enlists himself under no man’s banner, inquires for no man’s name, but repairs to the standard of the laws. Do this, and you need never fear anarchy or tyranny. Your government will be...

Corruption destroys liberty The immense briberies practised by Julius Caesar were sure and terrible presages of Caesar’s tyranny. It is amazing what mighty sums he gave away: Caius Curio alone, one of the tribunes, was bought into his interest, at no smaller a price...

The legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands. For it being but a delegated power from the people, they, who have it, cannot pass it over to others. —John Locke. Two Treatises of Government, 1689. This fundamental principle is breached by...

In the government of this commonwealth, the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers or either of them: the executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them: the judicial shall never exercise...

Constitution The act of law-making itself must be governed by a higher law—a written constitution. Manner and form of passing laws A written constitution should prescribe the mechanism for passing laws. That process must provide for multiple readings, publicity,...

Who is there that has not paid unjust demands rather than withstand the threat of an action? This man can point to property that has been alienated from his family from lack of funds or courage to fight for it. That man can name several relations ruined by a lawsuit....

Laws not executed are worse than none, and only teach men to despise law: whereas reverence and obedience go together. —Thomas Gordon. Cato’s Letters No. 57, Of false honour, public and private, Saturday, December 16, 1721. Unwanted laws should be removed from the...

Crimes will be less frequent in proportion as the code of laws is more universally read and understood. —Cesare Beccaria. Of Crimes and Punishments, 1764. The whole body of statute law should follow a theme which makes finding the law intuitive. To this end the people...

Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding, and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties, which may make anything mean everything or nothing, at pleasure. —Thomas...

Laws should be clearly written so they are capable of only one interpretation. Ambiguities should be removed where they prove persistent or force judges into contortions destructive of the principle of literal statutory interpretation.

Laws should be drafted so they can serve for extended periods. Settled laws, which have been bedded down by a body of case law, should not be lightly altered. Every time the law is altered, the long-term planning of lives and businesses is disrupted. It can take...

The sentiment that ex post facto laws are against natural rights is so strong in the United States, that few, if any, of the State constitutions have failed to proscribe them. The federal constitution indeed interdicts them in criminal cases only; but they are equally...

For all the power the Government has being only for the good of society, as it ought not to be arbitrary and at pleasure, so it ought to be exercised by established and promulgated laws; that both the people may know their duty, and be safe and secure within the...

The judgments ought to be fixed, and to such a degree, as to be always conformable to the exact letter of the law. Were they to be the private opinion of the judge, people would then live in a society without knowing exactly the obligation it lays them under....

It is discretion alone that is responsible for corruption. A local government official cannot take a bribe from a developer if he has no discretion to determine the outcome. The same holds true for the immigration official, the mayor, the procurement officer, and the...

When a law grants discretion to public servants, it is always harmful. Wishful thinking is attracted to the idea of officials having discretion to ‘decide what is best in the circumstances.’ It conjures up images of a benevolent Solomon fairly and appropriately...

The chief safeguard is that the rules must apply to those who lay them down and those who apply them—that is, to the government as well as the governed—and that nobody has the power to grant exceptions. —Friedrich Hayek. The Constitution of Liberty, 1960. The power to...

It is evident that not all the acts of government can be bound by fixed rules and that at every stage of the governmental hierarchy considerable discretion must be granted to the subordinate agencies. So long as the government administers its own resources, there are...

That constitution which trusts more than it needs to any man, or body of men, has a terrible flaw in it, and is big with the seeds of its own destruction. Hence arose tyrants, and tyranny, and standing armies: Marius, and Caesar, and Oliver Cromwell. How...

Granting officials discretion is unavoidable whenever the government steps outside its legitimate role. When the government intervenes in money markets, when it bails out companies, when it seeks to eliminate ‘harmful’ competition, regulate prices, or force business...

Discretion is objectionable because with it comes uncertainty. Good government requires certainty. Certainty of outcome allows individuals to fully command their own destinies. It allows individuals to plan their lives and businesses to plan their work. Moreover,...

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal —The Declaration of Independence America’s Founding Fathers were referring to the natural law; that each of us, from the citadel of our minds, looks out upon the world with the same consciousness,...

The rule of law means that government must never coerce an individual except in the enforcement of a known rule, it constitutes a limitation on the powers of all government, including the powers of the legislature. —Friedrich Hayek. The Constitution of Liberty, 1960....

The nature of man is so frail, that wheresoever the word of a single person has had the force of a law, the innumerable extravagances and mischiefs it has produced have been so notorious, that all nations who are not stupid, slavish and brutish, have always abominated...

Freedom of men under government is, to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power erected in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, where the rule prescribes not; and not to be subject to the...