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Unit 6: Socio-Economic Bases and Salient Features of the Constitutions

law that all blue-eyed babies must be killed. It shows that there are profound moral and Notes
psychological checks and voluntary self-restraints which come into operation when substantial
changes in the constitution are under consideration. The fact is that the supreme power of the
Parliament is based on the confidence of the people in its being the temple of national glory
and freedom. It stands on the political axiom that the consent of the Parliament “is taken to be
every man’s consent.” In a word, the doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty, so understood, “is
one of the most treasured in British constitutional history. It signifies the glorious liberation of
the people from royal tyranny.”
7. Rule of Law
The constitutional government of Britain represents democratic way of the people without a
declaration of independence and a written fundamental law of the land. It is, indeed, astonishing
to see that the British people feel themselves securely free in the midst of an unwritten and
evolved constitution the existence of which has been doubted by the protagonists of a written
and enacted constitution. The reason for this lies in a constitutional government what the
English writers, particularly Dicey, call by the name of ‘rule of law’. It is based on the common
law of the land and is the product of centuries of struggle between the rex or king determined
to rule by the virtue of ‘divine rights’ and the lex or law made by the people to protect their
inherent rights and privileges. Laski writes that it is through the rule of law that the Englishmen
“have sought to avoid not merely the obvious dangers of unfettered executive discretion in
administration; we have sought also to assure that the citizen shall have his rights decided by
a body of men whose tenure is safeguarded against the shifting currents of political opinion.”
The rule of law does not mean rule by super-men; it definitely means rule by the super-science
of law. As such, it represents the antithesis of the rule of lawlessness. It stands on the premise
that the welfare of the people is the supreme law. It implies a constitutional form of government
which exercises power in accordance with law denying any change for the king or his ministers
to identify themselves with the state in the fashion of King Louis XIV of France. Thus Lord
Hewart of Bury defines the rule of law as to mean the ‘supremacy or predominance of law as
distinguished from mere arbitrariness.” In other words, as a fundamental principle of the
British constitutional system, it signifies that the exercise of the powers of government “shall
be conditioned by law and that the subjects shall not be exposed to the arbitrary will of their
rulers.
The essential principles of the rule of law may be pinpointed in the following manner:
(i) The individual should be able, through his legal adviser, to ascertain the law fairly precisely
so that he can plan his actions with some degree of certainty.
(ii) Encroachment on the freedom of the individual must be lawful.
Hence:
(a) any act of the Government or its officials must be backed by law;
(b) no authority can interfere arbitrarily in the individual’s way of life;
(c) a citizen can feel certain he will not be arrested unless he is charged with some definite
breach of law.
(iii) Before the citizen can be punished, a breach of the law must be established in a lawful
manner before an impartial tribunal.
(iv) Justice must be regarded as an end in itself, interpreting the law as it stands and
uninfluenced outside the law by the wishes of the Parliament or the Government.
The concept of the rule of law was given a classical formulation by Dicey in the form of following
propositions:
First, the rule of law guarantees liberty of person and property by implying that no person can be
arbitrarily deprived of his life, liberty or property by arrest or detention except for a definite
breach of law tried in and held so by a court of competent jurisdiction. Second, the rule of law
ensures equality. That is, all persons are equal in the eye of law and subject to ordinary courts of

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