Rule of Law

The rule of law is a legal concept referring to the adherence of all individuals and institutions within a society to a fair and equally enforced set of laws. In the twenty-first century, countries operating under the rule of law generally make their laws publicly known to their citizens and have impartial courts in place to arbitrate the laws.

Early versions of the rule of law appeared in ancient Greece, when the lawgiver Draco codified Greece's oral law tradition into a set of written laws for the public to obey. This ultimately led, over several centuries, to the founding of the political system known as democracy, in which all the citizens of a society control their own government by electing representatives to legislate for them.

The rule of law was mostly absent from the rest of human history, however, until the American and French revolutions of the late 1700s. These revived democracy and the rule of law in the Western world.

Background

The origins of the rule of law lie in ancient Greece. Until the 600s BCE, the thriving city of Athens was governed by laws passed down orally to successive generations. These laws, given that they were referenced only in spoken language, were fluid in nature, subject to modification at any time to suit the particular interests of individuals or groups. Oral laws governed certain actions without considering the differing circumstances of each crime committed. Accidentally killing a person carried the same death sentence as did intentional murder, and families feuded constantly over their interpretations of laws.

In the 620s BCE, therefore, a citizen of Athens named Draco was selected to codify all of Athens's oral laws into a set of written laws. Codified laws meant that individuals could no longer interpret rules as they saw fit. Unchanging laws would now govern all citizens of Athens, including men, women, the wealthy, and the poor. Draco's laws transferred responsibility for enforcing the rules of the city from the citizens to the government. The laws distinguished between types of murder, for instance, acknowledging the difference between accidental and intentional killings. Draco's laws are one of the first recorded appearances of the rule of law in human history.

Democracy, and fairer manifestations of the rule of law, appeared in Greece over the next several years. Around 600 BCE, an Athenian poet and politician named Solon made Draco's laws more civil. The laws refashioned Athenian society around the economy, with political power reserved for only the wealthiest citizens. Although Solon also forgave the debts of people experiencing poverty and attempted to make their lives somewhat easier, he did not believe in allowing people experiencing poverty to contribute much to society.

The Athenian politicians Pericles and Ephialtes in the 400s BCE notably included low-income individuals of Athens in politics and society. Under these leaders, the Athenian rule of law gave way to the first Greek democracies, named for the ancient Greek word demokratia, meaning "people-power." The democracies that were eventually founded in many Greek cities were unlike the democracies of the twenty-first century. Only free men of Athenian birth could vote for elected officials; women, enslaved people, and foreigners were excluded. These ancient Greek democracies, however, provided early examples of governments operating under a rule of law that enforced definitive codes of legal conduct for all citizens.

Impact

True rule of law would not appear again for more than a thousand years. The Magna Carta of 1215 would come to be revered for establishing rule of law in England, but this was not entirely true. King John of England's barons forced the king to sign this document as a way of curtailing his despotic behavior. For years, John had been demanding money from his barons for personal pursuits and recklessly leading his armies into disastrous wars. By signing the Magna Carta, John agreed not to abuse his power over the barons or arrest and imprison people without having them properly judged first. The Magna Carta established rule of law not over all of England, but rather over the kingdom's monarch. It indicated that not even kings were excluded from following institutionalized laws.

The United States Constitution, enacted in 1789, created actual rule of law throughout the United States. Partly inspired by the Magna Carta, the Constitution's Bill of Rights section guaranteed the American people the freedoms of religion, speech, and the press and the right to fair trials before being convicted of crimes. The Constitution thereby became the supreme law of the United States, deferred to by American lawmakers for centuries afterward.

The French Revolution that began in 1789 was founded on the same principles of the American Revolution before it. French peasants wanted to end the rule of the all-powerful King Louis XVI and begin to participate in their own government. In 1789, the National Constituent Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, a document stating the French people's right to enjoy the rule of law and democratic principles such as freedom of speech, a representative government, and popular sovereignty, or government by consent of the governed. Although the French Revolution ended in chaos, extremism, and the founding of the French Empire, the democratic ideals and rule of law for which the French commoners had fought eventually emerged in successive republican governments of France.

In the twenty-first century, the American nonprofit organization the World Justice Project defined four principles that should be present in any legal system claiming to be governed by the rule of law. The first principle is that a nation's government and all its officials must answer to the law just as any other citizens do. Second, laws must be fair, publicly known, and applied to every individual, and third, the laws should be justly enforced. The final principle is that justice must be delivered in a timely manner by unbiased and ethical officials. The World Justice Project's Rule of Law Index monitored and evaluated over 140 countries by the mid-2020s based on eight factors and forty-four sub-factors—the absence of corruption, criminal justice, civil justice, regulatory enforcement, order and security, fundamental rights, open government, and constraints on government powers.

Bibliography

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