Lord Bingham gave a lecture on the Rule of Law (at the Cambridge Centre for Public Law, 16th November 2006). In the lecture he sets out the eight criteria that a society must meet if it is to be said to be obeying the rule of law. Download the pdf or listen to the MP3.
Lord Bingham is infuriatingly modest in his introduction: “I have identified eight such rules, which I shall briefly discuss. There is regrettably little to startle in any of them. More ingenious minds could doubtless propound additional and better sub-rules, or economise with fewer.”
The eight rules which must be fulfilled by a state if it is to claim to be following the rule of law:
- the law must be accessible and so far as possible intelligible, clear and predictable.
- questions of legal right and liability should ordinarily be resolved by application of the law and not the exercise of discretion.
- laws of the land should apply equally to all, save to the extent that objective differences justify differentiation.
- the law must afford adequate protection of fundamental human rights.
- means must be provided for resolving, without prohibitive cost or inordinate delay, bona fide civil disputes which the parties themselves are unable to resolve.
- ministers and public officers at all levels must exercise the powers conferred on them reasonably, in good faith, for the purpose for which the powers were conferred and without exceeding the limits of such powers.
- adjudicative procedures provided by the state should be fair.
- the existing principle of the rule of law requires compliance by the state with its obligations in international law, the law which whether deriving from treaty or international custom and practice governs the conduct of nations.
Read the lecture, download the MP3 this is a clear concise call to arms. Instead of allowing societies to be persuaded by politicians claiming that law is important this is a list by which such claims may be held accountable.