what is the rule of law essay

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Democracy and the Rule of Law

One of my major assignments with IBJ was to research and write a paper on the connection between democracy and the rule of law. The purpose was to demonstrate that democracy could not exist without the rule of law, and that only caring about the rule of law during elections is simply not enough to sustain democracy. I am hopeful that some of my language will be useful for IBJ grant applications in the future.

The Rule of Law is a millennia old principal referring to the way by which states are governed.  As compared with Rule by Law, where the government uses the law to govern and is considered to be above the law, Rule of Law means that all entities, including the government, must adhere to the supremacy of the law. The Rule of Law is a nearly a universal value, and the United Nations General Assembly regularly identifies “human rights, the rule of law and democracy” as universal and indivisible values of the United Nations. The United Nations has also prioritized the Rule of Law in Sustainable Development Goal 16 (SDG16): Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions. Specifically, SDG16 emphasizes that the Rule of Law plays a key role in promoting “peaceful, just, and inclusive societies and . . . ensuring sustainable development.”  One of the SDG16 targets is to promote the rule of law at both national and international levels to ensure equal access to justice for all.

The Rule of Law is closely linked with the ideals of democracy. A democratic state under the Rule of Law is a state where citizens elect their own leaders, and the government itself is bound by the law, while also helping to ensure that the law is respected among the citizens of the state. Democracy cannot exist without the Rule of Law, especially the rule that dictates who should occupy public office given the results of elections. However, only supporting the Rule of Law during an election season is not enough. Democratic stability depends on a self-enforcing equilibrium. In other words, political officials must respect democracy’s limits on their actions, particularly regarding the rights of citizens. Institutions that are self-perpetuating and do not operate based on individuality of single actors are powerful actors stabilizing that equilibrium. In a stable, self-perpetuating institution all conflicts are solved according to the institutional rules, and therefore, the Rule of Law stabilizes the democratic society. Rule of Law in a democratic institution allows governments to work their will through general legislation, and then to be subject to that legislation themselves.

Democratic stability depends on the self-enforcing equilibrium of the Rule of Law, which is often inherently vulnerable. The viability of the Rule of Law ultimately depends on the citizens: if they elect leaders who will violate the Rule of Law, the Rule of Law will decline rapidly. In fragile, conflict-affected societies, the Rule of Law is particularly fragile. Legislation and regulations for maintaining order do not have an immediate effect on behavior or security, and thus on democracy. Implementing sound Rule of Law principles in conflict-affected societies creates distinct challenges, because in addition to promoting the Rule of Law in judicial and legislative institutions, the security sector—including the military, police, and prisons—must also have a firm foundation in the Rule of Law.

            International Bridges to Justice promotes the Rule of Law around the globe by encouraging early access to the accused, cooperating with governments to create best practice legislation, creating awareness about basic rights and protections within a system, and training defenders to provide effective representation. Additionally, International Bridges to Justice is at the forefront of implementing SDG 16, particularly the access to justice component. IBJ’s work strengthening the Rule of Law around the world has inherently strengthened democracy as well.

Previously, I had only given thought to democracy and the rule of law as separate but intersecting concepts. This assignment allowed me to think much deeper about the how the two concepts are entirely codependent. IBJ’s work to promote the rule of law is essential in promoting democracy around the globe. I am hopeful that the research I did can be of some help in furthering this mission.

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The Pure Theory of Law

The idea of a Pure Theory of Law was propounded by the formidable Austrian jurist and philosopher Hans Kelsen (1881–1973) (see the bibliographical note). Kelsen began his long career as a legal theorist at the beginning of the 20th century. The traditional legal philosophies at the time, were, Kelsen claimed, hopelessly contaminated with political ideology and moralizing on the one hand, or with attempts to reduce the law to natural or social sciences, on the other hand. He found both of these reductionist endeavors seriously flawed. Instead, Kelsen suggested a ‘pure’ theory of law which would avoid reductionism of any kind. The jurisprudence Kelsen propounded “characterizes itself as a ‘pure’ theory of law because it aims at cognition focused on the law alone” and this purity serves as its “basic methodological principle” (PT1, 7).

1. The Basic Norm

2. relativism and reduction, 3. the normativity of law, primary sources, secondary sources, contemporary discussions and further reading, other internet resources, related entries.

The main challenge for a theory of law, as Kelsen saw it, is to provide an explanation of legality and the normativity of law, without an attempt to reduce jurisprudence, or “legal science”, to other domains. The law, Kelsen maintained, is basically a scheme of interpretation. Its reality, or objectivity, resides in the sphere of meaning; we attach a legal-normative meaning to certain actions and events in the world (PT1, 10). Suppose, for example, that a new law is enacted by the California legislature. How is it done? Presumably, some people gather in a hall, debate the issue, eventually raise their hands in response to the question of whether they approve a certain document or not, count the number of people who say “yes”, and then promulgate a string of words, etc. Now, of course, the actions and events described here are not the law. To say that the description is of the enactment of a new law is to interpret these actions and events in a certain way. But then, of course, the question is why certain acts or events have such a legal meaning and others don’t?

Kelsen’s answer to this question is surprisingly simple: an act or an event gains its legal-normative meaning by another legal norm that confers this normative meaning on it. An act can create or modify the law if it is created in accordance with another, “higher” legal norm that authorizes its creation in that way. And the “higher” legal norm, in turn, is legally valid if and only if it has been created in accord with yet another, “higher” norm that authorizes its enactment in that way. In other words: it is the law in the United States that the California legislature can enact certain types of laws. But what makes this the law? The California Constitution confers this power on the state legislature to enact laws within certain prescribed boundaries of content and jurisdiction. But then what makes the California Constitution legally valid? The answer is that the legal validity of the Constitution of California derives from an authorization granted by the US Constitution. What makes the US Constitution legally valid? Surely, not the fact that the US Constitution proclaims itself to be “the supreme law of the land”. Any document can say that, but only the particular document of the US Constitution is actually the supreme law in the United States.

The problem is that here the chain of authorization comes to an end: There isn’t a higher legal norm that authorizes the enactment of the (original) US Constitution. At this point, Kelsen famously argued, one must presuppose the legal validity of the Constitution. At some stage, in every legal system, we get to an authorizing norm that has not been authorized by any other legal norm, and thus it has to be presupposed to be legally valid. The normative content of this presupposition is what Kelsen has called the basic norm. The basic norm is the content of the presupposition of the legal validity of the (first, historical) constitution of the relevant legal system (GT, 110–111).

As Kelsen saw it, there is simply no alternative. More precisely, any alternative would violate David Hume’s injunction against deriving an “ought” from an “is”. Hume famously argued that any practical argument that concludes with some prescriptive statement, a statement of the kind that one ought to do this or that, would have to contain at least one prescriptive statement in its premises. If all the premises of an argument are descriptive, telling us what this or that is the case, then there is no prescriptive conclusion that can logically follow. Kelsen took this argument very seriously. He observed that the actions and events that constitute, say, the enactment of a law, are all within the sphere of what “is” the case, they are all within the sphere of actions and events that take place in the world. The law, or legal norms, are within the sphere of “ought”, they are norms that purport to guide conduct. Thus, to get an “ought” type of conclusion from a set of “is” premises, one must point to some “ought” premise in the background, an “ought” that confers the normative meaning on the relevant type of “is”. Since the actual, legal, chain of validity comes to an end, we inevitably reach a point where the “ought” has to be presupposed, and this is the presupposition of the basic norm.

The idea of the basic norm serves three theoretical functions in Kelsen’s theory of law: The first is to ground a non-reductive explanation of legal validity. The second function is to ground a non-reductive explanation of the normativity of law. The third function is to explain the systematic nature of legal norms. These three issues are not un-related.

Kelsen rightly noticed that legal norms necessarily come in systems. There are no free-floating legal norms. If, for example, somebody suggests that “the law requires a will to be attested by two witnesses”, one should always wonder which legal system is talked about; is it US law, Canadian law, German law, or the law in some other legal system? Furthermore, legal systems are themselves organized in a hierarchical structure, manifesting a great deal of complexity but also a certain systematic unity. We talk about Canadian law, or German law, etc., not only because these are separate countries in which there is law. They are also separate legal systems, manifesting a certain cohesion and unity. This systematic unity Kelsen meant to capture by the following two postulates:

• Every two norms that ultimately derive their validity from one basic norm belong to the same legal system.
• All legal norms of a given legal system ultimately derive their validity from one basic norm.

Whether these two postulates are actually true is a contentious issue. Joseph Raz argued that they are both inaccurate, at best. Two norms can derive their validity from the same basic norm, but fail to belong to the same system as, for example, in case of an orderly secession whereby a new legal system is created by the legal authorization of another. Nor is it necessarily true that all the legally valid norms of a given system derive their validity from the same basic norm (Raz 1979, 127–129).

Be this as it may, even if Kelsen erred about the details of the unity of legal systems, his main insight remains true, and quite important. It is true that law is essentially systematic, and it is also true that the idea of legal validity and law’s systematic nature are very closely linked. Norms are legally valid within a given system, they have to form part of a system of norms that is in force in a given place and time.

This last point brings us to another observation that is central to Kelsen’s theory, about the relations between legal validity and, what he called, “efficacy”. The latter is a term of art in Kelsen’s writings: A norm is efficacious if it is actually (generally) followed by the relevant population. Thus, “a norm is considered to be legally valid”, Kelsen wrote, “on the condition that it belongs to a system of norms, to an order which, on the whole, is efficacious” (GT, 42). So the relationship here is this: efficacy is not a condition of legal validity of individual norms. Any given norm can be legally valid even if nobody follows it. (e.g. think about a new law, just enacted; it is legally valid even if nobody has yet had an opportunity to comply with it.) However, a norm can only be legally valid if it belongs to a system, a legal order, that is by and large actually practiced by a certain population. And thus the idea of legal validity, as Kelsen admits, is closely tied to this reality of a social practice; a legal system exists, as it were, only as a social reality, a reality that consists in the fact that people actually follow certain norms.

What about the basic norm, is efficacy a condition of its validity? One might have thought that Kelsen would have opted for a negative answer here. After all, the basic norm is a presupposition that is logically required to render the validity of law intelligible. This would seem to be the whole point of an anti-reductionist explanation of legal validity: since we cannot derive an “ought” from an “is”, some “ought” must be presupposed in the background that would enable us to interpret certain acts or events as having legal significance. Kelsen, however, quite explicitly admits that efficacy is a condition of the validity of the basic norm: A basic norm is legally valid if and only if it is actually followed in a given population. In fact, as we shall see below, Kelsen had no choice here. And this is precisely why at least one crucial aspect of his anti-reductionism becomes questionable.

Common wisdom has it that Kelsen’s argument for the presupposition of the basic norm takes the form of a Kantian transcendental argument. The structure is as follows:

• P is possible only if Q
• P is possible (or, possibly P )
• Therefore, Q .

In Kelsen’s argument, P stands for the fact that legal norms are “ought” statements , and Q is the presupposition of the basic norm. In other words, the necessary presupposition of the basic norm is derived from the possibility conditions for ascribing legal significance to actions and events. In order to interpret an action as one of creating or modifying the law, it is necessary to show that the relevant legal significance of the act/event is conferred on it by some other legal norm. At some point, as we have noted, we necessarily run out of legal norms that confer the relevant validity on law creating acts, and at that point the legal validity has to be presupposed. The content of this presupposition is the basic norm.

It would be a mistake, however, to look for an explanation of Kelsen’s argument in the logic of Kant’s transcendental argument. (Kelsen himself seems to have changed his views about this over the years; he may have started with a kind of neo-Kantian perspective one can discern in PT1, and gradually shifted to a Humean version of his main argument, which is quite evident in GT. However, this is a very controversial issue; for a different view, see Paulson 2013 and Green 2016.) Kant employed a transcendental argument to establish the necessary presuppositions of some categories and modes of perception that are essential for rational cognition, or so he thought. They form deep, universal, and necessary features of human cognition. Suffice it to recall that it was Hume’s skepticism about knowledge that Kant strove to answer by his transcendental argument. Kelsen, however, remains much closer to Hume’s skeptical views than to Kant’s rationalism. In particular, Kelsen was very skeptical of any objective grounding of morality, Kant’s moral theory included. Kelsen’s view of morality was relativist all the way down. (More on this, below). Second, and not unrelated, as we shall see, Kelsen has explicitly rejected the idea that the basic norm (in law, or of any other normative domain) is something like a necessary feature or category of human cognition. The presupposition of a basic norm is optional. One does not have to accept the normativity of law; anarchism, as a rejection of law’s normative validity is certainly an option, Kelsen maintained. The basic norm is presupposed only by those who accept the “ought”, that is, the normative validity, of the law. But one is not rationally compelled to have this attitude:

The Pure Theory describes the positive law as an objectively valid order and states that this interpretation is possible only under the condition that a basic norm is presupposed…. The Pure Theory, thereby characterizes this interpretation as possible, not necessary, and presents the objective validity of positive law only as conditional—namely conditioned by the presupposed basic norm. (PT2, 217–218)

A comparison to religion, that Kelsen himself offered, might be helpful here. The normative structure of religion is very similar to that of law. It has the same logic: religious beliefs about what one ought to do ultimately derive from one’s beliefs about God’s commands. God’s commands, however, would only have normative validity for those who presuppose the basic norm of their respective religion, namely, that one ought to obey God’s commands. Thus the normativity of religion, like that of the law, rests on the presupposition of its basic norm. But in both cases, as, in fact, with any other normative system, the presupposition of the basic norm is logically required only of those who regard the relevant norms as reasons for their actions. Thus, whether you actually presuppose the relevant basic norm is a matter of choice, it is an ideological option, as it were, not something that is dictated by Reason. Similarly, the normativity of law, presupposed by its basic norm, is optional: “An anarchist, for instance, who denied the validity of the hypothetical basic norm of positive law…. will view its positive regulation of human relationships… as mere power relations” (GT, 413).

Relativism, however, comes with a price. Consider this question: What is the content of the basic norm that one needs to presuppose in order to render positive law intelligible as a normative legal order? The simple answer is that what one presupposes here is precisely the normative validity of positive law, namely, the law that is actually practiced by a certain population. The validity of the basic norm, as we noted briefly earlier, is conditional on its “efficacy”. The content of the basic norm of any given legal system is determined by the actual practices that prevail in the relevant community. As Kelsen himself repeatedly argued, a successful revolution brings about a radical change in the content of the basic norm. Suppose, for example, that in a given legal system the basic norm is that the constitution enacted by Rex One is binding. At a certain point, a coup d’etat takes place and a republican government is successfully installed. At this point, Kelsen admits, ‘one presupposes a new basic norm, no longer the basic norm delegating law making authority to the monarch, but a basic norm delegating authority to the revolutionary government’ (PT1, 59).

Has Kelsen just violated his own adherence to Hume’s injunction against deriving “ought” from an “is” here? One gets the clear impression that Kelsen was aware of a serious difficulty in his position. In both editions of the Pure Theory of Law, Kelsen toys with the idea that perhaps changes in the basic norms of municipal legal systems legally derive from the basic norm of public international law. It is a basic principle of international law that state sovereignty is determined by actual control over a territory/population (PT1 61–62, though in PT2, 214–215, the idea is presented with greater hesitation; notably, some commentators argue that Kelsen took the idea of a universal legal order much more seriously than suggested here—see Green 2016). But this led Kelsen to the rather uncomfortable conclusion that there is only one basic norm in the entire world, namely, the basic norm of public international law. Be this as it may, the main worry lies elsewhere. The worry stems from the fact that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to maintain both a profound relativist and an anti-reductionist position with respect to a given normative domain. If you hold the view that the validity of a type of norms is entirely relative to a certain vantage point—in other words, if what is involved here is only the actual conduct, beliefs/presuppositions and attitudes of people—it becomes very difficult to detach the explanation of that normative validity from the facts that constitute the relevant point of view (namely, the facts about people’s actions, beliefs, attitudes, etc). This is basically what was meant earlier by the comment that Kelsen had no option but to admit that the validity of the basic norm is conditional on its efficacy. The normative relativism which is inherent in Kelsen’s conception forces him to ground the content of the basic norm in the social facts that constitute its content, namely, the facts about actions, beliefs, and attitudes actually entertained by the population in question. And this makes it very questionable that reductionism can be avoided. In fact, what Kelsen really offered us here is an invitation to provide a reductive explanation of the concept of legal validity in terms of some set of social facts, the facts that constitute the content of any given basic norm. (Which is precisely the kind of reduction H.L.A. Hart later offered in his account of the Rules of Recognition as social rules [see Hart 1961, at p. 105, where Hart alludes to the difference between his conception of the rules of recognition and Kelsen’s idea of the basic norm.])

Kelsen’s problem here is not due to the fact that he was a relativist with respect to every normative system, like morality, religion etc.; it is not the scope of his relativism that is relevant to the question of reduction. The problem stems from the fact that Kelsen was quite right about the law. Legal validity is essentially relative to the social facts that constitute the content of the basic norm in each and every legal order. Notice that legal validity is always relative to a time and place. A law enacted by the California legislature only applies within the boundaries of the state of California, and it applies during a certain period of time, after its enactment and until a time when it is modified or repealed. And we can see why: because legal validity is determined by the content of the basic norm that is actually followed in a given society. The laws in UK, for example, are different from those in the US, because people (mostly judges and other officials) actually follow different rules, or basic norms, in Kelsen’s terminology, about what counts as law in their respective jurisdictions. Once Kelsen admits, as he does, that the content of a basic norm is fully determined by practice, it becomes very difficult to understand how the explication of legal validity he offers is non-reductive.

Let us now see how Kelsen thought that the basic norm helps to explain the sense in which law is a normative domain and what this normativity consists in. The first and crucial point to realize is that for Kelsen the idea of normativity is tantamount to a genuine “ought”, as it were; it is a justified demand on practical deliberation. A certain content is regarded as normative by an agent if and only if the agent regards that content as a valid reason for action. As Joseph Raz noticed, Kelsen agrees with the Natural Law tradition in this particular respect; both assume that the normativity of law can only be explained as one would explain the normativity of morality, or religion for that matter, namely, in terms of valid reasons for action (Raz 1979, 134–137; but cf. Paulson 2012). But then, the problem for Kelsen is how to explain the difference between the normativity of law and that of morality; if legal “ought” is a genuine “ought”, what makes a legal obligation distinct from a moral one? Kelsen’s answer is that the relevant “ought” is always relative to a given point of view. Each and every type of “ought”, be it religious, moral or legal, must presuppose a certain point of view, a point of view which is constituted by the basic norm of the relevant normative system.

In other words, Kelsen’s conception of legal normativity turns out to be a form of Natural Law completely relativized to a certain point of view. However, in Kelsen’s theory the relevant point of view is distinctly a legal one, not some general conception of morality or Reason. That these two basic norms, or points of view, can come apart, is nicely demonstrated by Kelsen’s comment that “even an anarchist, if he were a professor of law, could describe positive law as a system of valid norms, without having to approve of this law” (PT2 218n). The anarchist does not endorse the legal point of view as one that reflects her own views about what is right and wrong. Anarchism is understood here precisely as a rejection of the normative validity of law; however, even the anarchist can make an argument about what the law in this or that context requires; and when she makes such an argument, she must presuppose the legal point of view, she must argue as if she endorses the basic norm of the relevant legal system. Joseph Raz has called these kinds of statements “detached normative statements”; the anarchist argues as if she endorses the basic norm, without actually endorsing it. Another example that Raz gave is this: suppose that at Catholic priest is an expert in Jewish Law; the priest can make various interpretative arguments about what Jewish law really requires in this or that context. In such a case, the priest must argue as if he endorses the basic norm of Jewish Law, but of course, being a Catholic, he does not really endorse it, it does not reflect his own views about what is right and wrong (Raz 1979, 153–157).

So here is what emerges so far: the concept of normativity, the sense in which normative content is related to reasons for action, is the same across all normative domains. To regard something as normative is to regard it as justified, as a warranted requirement on practical deliberation. However, the difference resides in the difference in points of view. Each basic norm determines, as it were, a certain point of view. So it turns out that normativity (contra Kant) always consists of conditional imperatives: if, and only if, one endorses a certain normative point of view, determined by its basic norm, then the norms that follow from it are reason giving, so to speak. This enables Kelsen to maintain the same understanding of the nature of normativity as Natural Law’s conception, namely, normativity qua reasons for action, without having to conflate the normativity of morality with that of law. In other words, the difference between legal normativity and, say, moral normativity, is not a difference in normativity (viz, about the nature of normativity, per se), but only in the relevant vantage point that is determined by their different basic norms. What makes legal normativity unique is the uniqueness of its point of view, the legal point of view, as it were.

We can set aside the difficulties that such a view raises with respect to morality. Obviously, many philosophers would reject Kelsen’s view that moral reasons for action only apply to those who choose to endorse morality’s basic norm (whatever it may be). Even if Kelsen is quite wrong about this conditional nature of moral imperatives, he may be right about the law. What remains questionable, however, is whether Kelsen succeeds in providing a non-reductive explanation of legal normativity, given the fact that his account of legal validity turned out to be reductive after all. The trouble here is not simply the relativity to a point of view; the trouble resides in Kelsen’s failure to ground the choice of the relevant point of view in anything like Reason or reasons of any kind. By deliberately avoiding any explanation of what it is that might ground an agent’s choice of endorsing the legal point of view, or any given basic norm, Kelsen left the most pressing questions about the normativity of law unanswered. Instead of providing an explanation of what makes the presupposition of the legal point of view rational, or what makes it rational to regard the requirements of law as binding requirements, Kelsen invites us to stop asking.

Kelsen’s academic publications span over almost seven decades in which he published dozens of books and hundreds of articles. Only about a third of this vast literature has been translated to English. Kelsen’s two most important books on the pure theory of law are the first edition of his Reine Rechtslehre , published in 1934 and recently (2002) translated. The second edition, which Kelson published in 1960 (translated in 1967) is a considerably extended version of the first edition. In addition, most of the themes in these two books also appear in Kelsen’s General Theory of Law and State . These three works are cited in text as follows:

Other relevant publications in English include:

• 1957, What is Justice? , Berkeley: University of California Press.
• 1941, ‘The Pure Theory of Law and Analytical Jurisprudence’, Harvard Law Review , 55: 44–70.
• 1965, ‘Professor Stone and the Pure Theory of Law: A Reply’, Stanford Law Rev , 17(6): 1128–1157.
• 1966, ‘On the Pure Theory of Law’, Israel Law Review , 1(1): 1–7.

For a complete list of Kelsen’s publications that have appeared in English see the Appendix to H. Kelsen, General Theory of Norms , M. Hartney (trans.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991, pp. 440–454.

• Green, S.M., 2016, “Marmor’s Kelsen”, in D.A. Jeremy Telman (ed.), Hans Kelsen in America , Dordrecht: Springer Verlag.
• Harris, J.W., 1980, Legal Philosophies (Chapter 6), London: Butterworths.
• Hart, H.L.A., 1961, The Concept of Law (Chapter 3), Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• –––, 1970, “Kelsen’s Doctrine of the Unity of Law”, in H.E. Kiefer and M.K. Munitz (eds.), Ethics and Social Justice , New York: State University of New York Press, pp. 171–199.
• Marmor, A., 2001, Objective Law and Positive Values , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• –––, 2011, Philosophy of Law , The Princeton Series in the Foundations of Contemporary Philosophy (S. Soames ed.), Chapter 1, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Paulson, S., 2002, Introduction to Kelsen’s Introduction to the Problems of Legal Theory , Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. xvii.
• –––, 2012. “A ‘Justified Normativity’ Thesis in Hans Kelsen’s Pure Theory of Law? Rejoinders to Robert Alexy and Joseph Raz”, in Matthias Klatt (ed.), Institutionalized Reason: The Jurisprudence of Robert Alexy , Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 61–111.
• –––, 2013. “The Great Puzzle: Kelsen’s Basic Norm”, in Luis Duarte d’Almeida, John Gardner, and Leslie Green (eds.), Kelsen Revisited: New Essays on the Pure Theory of Law , Oxford: Hart Publishing, pp. 43–62.
• Raz, J., 1980, The Concept of a Legal System , 2 nd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• –––, 1979, ‘Kelsen’s Theory of the Basic Norm’, in J. Raz, The Authority of Law , Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 122–145.
• Tur, R.H. & W. Twining (eds.), 1986, Essays on Kelsen , Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Bix, B., 2018, “Kelsen, Hart, and Legal Normativity”, Revus , 34: 1–17, doi:10.4000/revus.3984
• Gragl, P., 2017, “In Defence of Kelsenian Monism: Countering Hart and Raz”, Jurisprudence , 8(2): 287–318.
• Green, S. M., 2021, “Hans Kelsen’s Non-Reductive Positivism”, in T. Spaak & P. Mindus (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Legal Positivism , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 272–300.
• Guastini, R., 2016, “Kelsen on Validity (Once More)”, Ratio Juris , 29: 402–409.
• Langford, P., Bryan, I., & McGarry, J. (eds.), 2017, Kelsenian Legal Science and the Nature of Law , Cham: Springer.
• Orakhelashvili, A., 2019, Domesticating Kelsen: Towards the Pure Theory of English Law , Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing
• Pavlakos, G., 2018, “Non-naturalism, Normativity and the Meaning of Ought: Some Lessons from Kelsen”, in K. E. Himma, M. Jovanovic & B. Spaic (eds.), Unpacking Normativity Conceptual, Normative, and Descriptive Issues , Oxford: Hart Publishing, pp. 77–94.
• Paulson, S. L., 2019, “Hans Kelsen on Legal Interpretation, Legal Cognition, and Legal Science”, Jurisprudence , 10(2): 188–221.
• –––2017, “Metamorphosis in Hans Kelsen’s Legal Philosophy”, Moderna Law Review , 80(5): 860–894.
• –––2018, “The Purity Thesis”, Ratio Juris , 31(3): 276–306.
• Spaak, T., 2018, “A Challenge to Bix’s Interpretation of Kelsen and Hart’s Views on the Normativity of Law”, Revus , 37: 75–82, doi:10.4000/revus.4561

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ethics: natural law tradition | Hume, David: moral philosophy | nature of law | nature of law: legal positivism

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Home — Essay Samples — Law, Crime & Punishment — Constitution — Understanding the Rule of Law: A Scholarly Perspective

Understanding The Rule of Law: a Scholarly Perspective

• Categories: Civil Law Constitution Society

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Words: 1889 |

10 min read

Published: Oct 31, 2018

Words: 1889 | Pages: 4 | 10 min read

• Supremacy of Law: Where no man is above law or can only be punished for a breach of the law. Every person is to be governed by law including those who are administering it and also governs the lawmakers while exercising their powers to make and administer the law. More so they are bound to justify their act by proper reasoning otherwise the whole motive of the doctrine is hampered.
• Equality before the law: The principle states equal an ordinary law of the land for all the classes of people irrespective of their caste, creed, religion etc. and are bestowed to the regular law courts. The fair laws should be administered and enforced in just and proper manner.
• The predominance of legal spirit: According to Dicey written guarantee is immaterial unless there is a mechanism by which it can be enforced. Such authority is believed to be present in Courts which should be unbiased and free from any kind of external influences. To further add judicial control of the Administrative action is an important pillar of Administrative Law.
• Laws must be prospective, open, and clear.
• Laws should be relatively stable.
• Making of Laws
• Independence of the judiciary
• Principles of Natural Justice
• Courts having review power
• Courts should be easily accessible

Works Cited

• Raz, J. (1977). The rule of law and its virtue. Law Quarterly Review, 93(2), 195-214.
• Hart, H. L. A. (1961). The concept of law. Oxford University Press.
• Bingham, T. (2010). The rule of law. Penguin Books.
• Gowder, P. (2016). The rule of law in the real world. Cambridge University Press.
• Shapiro, I. (Ed.). (1994). The rule of law: Nomos XXXVI. NYU Press.
• Dubber, M. D., & Tomlins, C. (Eds.). (2018). The Oxford handbook of the rule of law. Oxford University Press.
• Bellamy, R. (2010). The rule of law and the separation of powers. Routledge.
• Sellers, M., & Tomaszewski, T. (Eds.). (2010). The rule of law in comparative perspective. Springer.
• Neumann, F. (1974). The rule of law: A comparative perspective. SUNY Press.
• Marshall, D. (2014). The international rule of law movement: A crisis of legitimacy and the way forward. Harvard International Law Journal, 55(2), 409-448.

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• Human rights

Human rights and the rule of law

“Has the rule of law been replaced by the rule of politics?” That is the question posed in this year’s annual Graham Turnbull essay competition  – and it could not be asked at a more salient time.

Human rights under attack?

The inextricable links between democracy, the rule of law and human rights are acknowledged throughout the international legal and political spheres, finding expression in texts from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the European Convention. And yet, the significant role that human rights play as a stabilising force, let alone the protection they provide for all the rights and freedoms that we hold dear, is still often taken for granted.

As we edge tentatively towards Brexit day, it is possible that we will see the removal of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights from UK law. The future of protections contained within the Human Rights Act are also being questioned.

Meanwhile, across the globe, there is a shocking amount of evidence of what happens when human rights protections are treated with disdain.

At the Law Society, through our international Lawyers at Risk programme , we see particular consequences in the ongoing harassment, intimidation, arbitrary arrest and detention, and even torture and killing of human rights lawyers.

The Graham Turnbull essay competition and lecture

The centrality of human rights to the rule of law and our experience of providing assistance to lawyers at risk are why the Law Society is dedicated to promoting human rights through our work, including events such as the Graham Turnbull Lecture .

Graham Turnbull was an English solicitor from Yorkshire. Leaving behind his life and legal practice in England, he travelled to Rwanda in 1994 where he worked as a United Nations human rights monitor, investigating reprisal killings in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide.

Tragically, he was killed in 1997, along with four others, in an apparent state-sanctioned ambush as they travelled in clearly marked UN vehicles. The killings were condemned internationally and led to the UN temporarily suspending its operations in the region and withdrawing aid workers.

The Law Society honours Graham’s memory by running an annual essay competition , in conjunction with the Graham Turnbull Memorial Fund, and a lecture from a relevant guest speaker .

Through the question posed, we encourage law students and junior lawyers to examine current pressing human rights issues and to consider their impact on the wider system of human rights and law.

This year’s question – “Has the rule of law been replaced with the rule of politics?” – captures the essence of wider challenges that have been felt across the legal and political systems of not just the UK, but countries throughout the world. It is a question concerned with the fundamental principles upon which democratic systems are built, and their ability to weather these challenges.

We are delighted that Tom Hickman QC will be sharing his thoughts on the essay question at the Graham Turnbull Lecture , hosted on Human Rights Day (10 December 2019). As a leading barrister with Blackstone Chambers who was part of the team representing Gina Miller in her two headline cases against the government, his will be a timely contribution to this fundamental debate.

Tom will also be announcing the winner of the essay competition at the event, which is chaired by Sue Willman , Chair of the Law Society Human Rights Committee, with an introduction from Stephanie Boyce , Law Society Deputy Vice-President.

In times of legal and political upheaval, the rule of law is the unfaltering guide to maintaining stability. We hope that you will join us on 10 December to celebrate the place of human rights in sustaining this equilibrium and raise awareness of their ongoing importance to our legal system. Book your place via our events website .

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• Rule of law

Rule of Law

ELSA and LexisNexis wish to honour Rule of Law commitment among law students and young lawyers across Europe. To realise this mission, we announce the ELSA x LexisNexis Essay Competition on the Rule of Law to raise the awareness of law students and young lawyers across Europe and the globe, on the importance of the Rule of Law. This year we encourage law students and young lawyers to engage actively with the Rule of Law by asking them to share their views on the following topic:

“Corruption and the Rule of Law”

Previous Rule of Law Essay Competition focused on: “The role of youth in building a resilient Rule of Law”

The winning essay was drafted by Miel Niemann from Germany. Below, you can find the winning essay.

The Rule of law is the foundation for the development of peaceful, equitable and prosperous societies. 

LexisNexis expresses the Rule of Law in their Rule of Law Definition :

Equality under the Law

Transparency of law, independent judiciary, accessible legal remedy.

The Rule of Law is the foundation of all other rights. Without the Rule of Law, nothing else works:

I. Without the Rule of Law, there is no contract system (how do you do business, how do you enforce your contracts, how do you make money?)

II. Without the Rule of Law, there is no protection for intellectual property (how do you protect your business, inventions and assets?).

III.  Without the Rule of Law, there is no protection for personal security and abuse (of all kinds).

IV.  Without contracts, protection of IP, personal security, investment is stunted, capital growth slows, and commerce cannot flourish.

The Rule of Law is not just a “nice to have”, it is an absolute necessity for success . The Rule of Law is not merely an issue for developing countries; it is under constant threat in all countries of the world and we must be vigilant everywhere.

The LexisNexis Rule of Law initiatives

LexisNexis has developed a Rule of Law Tracker . Countries are scored against 44 indicators across eight categories, based on interviews with 100,000 households and 2,400 experts around the globe.

LexisNexis partnered with the International Bar Association in London to create eyeWitness to Atrocities . eyeWitness combines law and technology to assist human rights defenders in documenting and reporting human rights atrocities in a secure and verifiable way, so the information can be used as evidence in a court of law.

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“Rule of law” with Chinese characteristics: Evolution and manipulation

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Jerome A Cohen, “Rule of law” with Chinese characteristics: Evolution and manipulation, International Journal of Constitutional Law , Volume 19, Issue 5, December 2021, Pages 1882–1887, https://doi.org/10.1093/icon/moab085

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Government under law or law under government? Rule of law or rule by law? That was the hotly debated constitutional law topic in China during the last two decades of the twentieth century. In her article, “Shifting Meanings of Fazhi and China’s Journey toward Socialist Rule of Law”, Professor Ye gives us a careful and thoughtful analysis of relevant developments that includes the decisive outcome reinforced by current Communist Party chief Xi Jinping. Drawing upon China’s imperial traditions and dictatorial Legalist philosophy, Xi wields law as an instrument of comprehensive official power, although in practice his repression strays into Communist lawlessness.

I was reluctant at first to consider the invitation of the International Journal of Constitutional Law to comment on a Chinese scholar’s disquisition on the “socialist rule of law” in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). What might I expect? Another legal rationalization of the latest developments in China’s “people’s democratic dictatorship” by a scholar demonstrating regime loyalty in the tradition of the intellectual servants of the country’s millennial emperors? Or another ingenious attempt by one of the country’s liberal law professors to concoct a subtle theory that purports to remain consistent with the current Communist Party line while actually seeking to constrain it?

Happily, I was surprised and pleased by the formidable essay of Professor Ruiping Ye. 1 She, it turns out, is not based in the PRC but in the law faculty of New Zealand’s Victoria University of Wellington and is therefore literally remote from the conflicting pressures to which Chinese scholars of constitutional law are generally subject.

Also, having vowed to work on my memoirs instead of responding even to the best of law journal articles, I was personally delighted to see that Professor Ye not only traces the constitutional and ideological debates over the proper meanings to be attributed to two contending Chinese terms relating to “rule of law,” both pronounced “fa-zhi,” but she also clearly links these struggles to the real-life political-legal events of the past four decades that spawned them. After waiting impatiently for too many years for the opportunity to work in China rather than merely visit, I became a participant-observer in some of those events, starting in late 1978, and can attest to the accuracy of her characterizations and analysis.

The periodization that the author imposes upon the post-Cultural Revolution PRC determination to replace Chairman Mao’s cruel chaos with an appropriate legal system seems correct. Her insights into the 1978–89 era recall the exciting essential spirit of an age of great, groping, intellectual ferment. Despite many disagreements about details and their implications, there was, as Professor Ye points out, a broadly-shared felt, if inchoate, need to work toward the goal of subjecting “government,” including the Communist Party that controlled the government, to the law that was gradually being enacted and that would embrace concepts such as “equality before the law” and “judicial independence.” 2

To be sure, there was “old guard” opposition to the new era initiated by Deng Xiaoping. There was the ever-present threat of yet another political campaign like the 1983 Party movement to suppress “spiritual pollution,” or of another blow to liberal leadership like the 1987 ouster of Hu Yaobang, the progressive Party General Secretary whom Party elders, including Deng, held responsible for failing to prevent public protests in favor of “bourgeois democracy.”

Yet Hu’s immediate successor as formal Party leader was also a reformer, the able and dynamic Zhao Ziyang, who continued the vaguely articulated quest to find a way to limit the power of the Party and produce “government under law.” Zhao promptly proposed disentangling the Party from day-to-day state operations, confining it to policy formulation, selection of personnel, and other general matters. As Professor Ye recognizes, this, “if successful, would have further developed the rule of law in China.” 3

The author’s summary of the optimistic aspirations and incomplete achievements of the 1980s is worth quoting: “Given that China was at the beginning of rebuilding a legal system, fundamental rule of law principles could not be realized overnight, but the blueprint was drawn and the foundation was laid, upon which details could be added and structures could be built.” 4

Sadly, this was not to happen. The military massacre of at least hundreds of peaceful protesters that took place on June 3–4, 1989 near Beijing’s Tiananmen Square ended the era. Threatened with popular overthrow, the Party’s suddenly revamped leadership, after actually placing the newly-deposed Zhao Ziyang under house arrest for what would be the last sixteen years of his life, promptly abandoned its flirtation with Westernized “government under law.” In its stead, with the aid of some fancy legal and linguistic legerdemain, it chose what may be encapsulated as “law under government,” a path much more congenial to the imperial traditions of the “Central Realm.”

Indeed, Professor Ye rightly emphasizes the marked similarity between the Party-state’s enthusiastic embrace of “rule BY law” and the legalist philosophy of government adopted by China’s first emperor. Over two thousand years ago, his Qin dynasty unified the country through uniform application of laws authorizing unchallengeable harsh punishments.

There was during this second post-1978 period, which can be seen as lasting roughly from mid-1989 until the 2012 ascension of Xi Jinping as Party General Secretary, an enormous amount of apparent legal progress. It featured constitutional amendments, legislation on many topics including administrative law and government information disclosure authorizing the right to sue officials in circumscribed circumstances, other procedural and institutional improvements, development of an increasingly sophisticated judiciary and legal profession, and a huge expansion in the number of law schools and university legal departments. The prime motivation for these ambitious achievements was the Party leadership’s desire to successfully develop a “socialist market economy” and reap the benefits of cooperation with the world community, as symbolized by PRC acceptance into the World Trade Organization.

Yet, as Professor Ye hammers home, this turn toward the new and attractive slogan of “ruling the country according to law” was in fact a betrayal of the hopes for a genuine “rule of law”. 5 Some of these achievements did put certain restraints on the conduct of the official government bureaucracy, as imperial law did too, but in neither case did law restrain the ruling power—in our day the Party leadership and, until the twentieth century, the emperor.

Moreover, Professor Ye introduces another interesting point—the ostensible revival of respect for Confucian philosophy—that reinforces the perception that China’s current regime, despite its persisting allegiance to Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong thought, bears the hallmarks of inherited national tradition. 6 Until recent years, the country’s Communist revolutionaries, like other twentieth-century Chinese radicals and reformers, condemned Confucius and his disciples as the fount of the “feudalism” that had consigned the once great imperial “Central Realm” to the “century of humiliation” that began, according to Party scriptures, with the Opium War of 1839 and lasted until Communist “Liberation” in 1949.

Recognizing from historical experience that the Chinese, like others, are best governed not by coercion alone but by the ruler’s parallel resort to ideology and moral suasion, and seeking to bolster the nation’s sagging faith in Communism, the Party has lately sought to broaden its appeal by invoking a selective version of Confucianism to serve, like the legal system, as another instrument of political control. As Professor Ye elaborates, this appears to be a replay of what occurred when China’s first, short-lived Qin dynasty was succeeded by a far more stable Han dynasty that initiated a millennial process of blending the harsh Legalist philosophy of governance with the more humane, society-centered, virtuous prescriptions of Confucius and his interpreters. 7 Although the threat of potential loss of the “Mandate of Heaven” was supposed to restrain the emperor from serious misdeeds, in practice neither Confucianism nor Legalism seriously limited the exercise of imperial power.

The third and present period in the post-1978 contest between “rule of law” and “rule by law” began, as the author notes, about a decade ago and moved into high gear in 2012 when Xi Jinping assumed Party leadership and shortly thereafter also became both President of the state and Chairman of the National Military Commission. Although the current era might be characterized as essentially a further application of the principle of “governing according to law,” i.e. “rule by law,” that dominated the second stage, the recent changes wrought in the name of “doing everything through law” have been so distinctive as to warrant separate attention.

Professor Ye calls this third stage “rule with legal legitimacy,” 8 a label that makes me uncomfortable, since it seems to give the Devil more than his due. Surely it is Xi Jinping’s attempt to complete the process, already well under way, of cloaking Party monopolization of government power with the mantle of legality. It is, of course, a far cry—indeed at the opposite end of the spectrum—from the hope of the long-deposed Zhao Ziyang to largely separate the Party from the government. Three bold constitutional amendments, secretly prepared and rapidly bulled through the National People’s Congress (NPC) in early 2018, have brought the Party closer to integration with, and almost congruence with, the government than ever before.

The most publicity-generating amendment was the abolition of the two-term limit for the office of the nation’s President. Although the PRC Constitution grants the President few important powers, the position is prestigious at home as well as abroad as the symbol of the country’s leadership. It has gradually come to rival the prestige of Party General Secretary, for which there is no term limit under Party rules. The sudden elimination of any presidential term limit, opening the possibility that Xi Jinping might remain President as well as General Secretary for life, came as a huge shock to the nation, despite Xi’s ever-increasing accumulation of power during the previous five years. It legally formalized congruence at the very top of the Party, government, and military hierarchies.

To ensure legal confirmation of the principle of Party control over the government, the Constitution was further amended to insert that principle into the document’s body, rather than allowing it to rest, as before, in the oft-perceived ambiguity of the Constitution’s preface.

And, to leave no doubt that this principle would be implemented more thoroughly than ever, the third constitutional amendment, to the disbelief of many PRC legal officials, established a fourth branch of government under the NPC. It was designed to consolidate in real life the Party’s control over the other three branches and even over the theoretically all-powerful NPC. The new, rather innocuous sounding National Supervisory Commission (NSC) is the most significant innovation yet made in the Soviet government model imported from the late USSR by all other “socialist” states, past and present. It has been endowed with the power to coerce not only all of the Party’s 92 million members but all public officials and others who exercise public functions broadly construed.

The NSC builds upon, and shares offices, personnel, and practices with, the Party’s long-feared but legally unauthorized “discipline and inspection” system, which has played a key role in enforcing the Party’s will among Party members through surveillance, incommunicado detention, and torture so effectively that many targets committed suicide after being summoned. The NSC, and its sub-units at every level of government, although supposedly restricted by legislation enacted to channel its powers, is considered in fact to be more powerful than the other, pre-existing branches of government —the executive branch including the public security force, the procuracy, and certainly the courts. Although nominally required to report to the NPC like the other branches, the NSC, as the Party’s key legally-authorized official suppressor of not only corruption but also violations of Party discipline and state law in any respects, is widely thought to be more powerful in affecting individuals and practical affairs than even the NPC and its staff.

In these circumstances, it is easy to see why Professor Ye gloomily concludes that the Party has obliterated prospects for the “rule of law” even while endlessly hijacking its name in order to impose “rule by law.” 9 Yet, if one steps away from her learned and important preoccupation with theory to focus on practice, the situation is actually worse than it appears. In many spheres, the police, and sometimes the procurators who are supposed to serve as both general “watchdogs of legality” and prosecutors, have long acted in total disregard for law or have indulged in twisted interpretations of legislation designed to restrict their powers. They can be confident that there will seldom be opportunities for judges, criminal defense lawyers, government officials, civil society groups, or the media to successfully call them to account. It may be useful to remind readers of this journal that we are talking about the fate of the “rule of law” in the world’s most populated country, which, seventy years after establishment of its current government, has yet to authorize an effective means to challenge the constitutionality of legislation and official actions.

Having proved her case, Professor Ye understandably seems aghast at her conclusion and appends a final paragraph that seeks to end her study “on a positive note.” The arguments that she musters, however, in a too brief effort at optimism that is the least persuasive part of her impressive essay, require fuller development. Otherwise it will be too easy for astute observers of the PRC to dismiss her “hope that, in a distant future” the “supreme Party might choose to relinquish its supremacy.” 10 The circumstances surrounding the decisions of Deng Xiaoping to end Chairman Mao’s “class struggle” in 1978 and of Chiang Kaishek’s heirs to peacefully transform his Leninist-type totalitarian regime on Taiwan during the decade beginning 1987 were very different from those that are likely to prevail for the foreseeable future in twenty-first-century China.

Yet history is notoriously adventitious, China’s progress under Communism has witnessed many swings of the pendulum, and “revolutionary successors” to the ill-fated Zhao Ziyang, prepared to pursue a liberalizing path, amply exist among today’s dissatisfied but suppressed Party elite.

Writing in another grim era—mid-1966, after the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution but before its worst excesses—I pointed out that Chairman Mao’s heirs would have to cope with the pent-up aspirations of the suppressed Chinese people. In assessing prospects for eventual criminal justice reform, I concluded that: “Perhaps the least hazardous prediction one can make … is that, as long as Mao remains in power, we are unlikely to witness any substantial improvement in the plight of the individual in relation to the state.” 11 Perhaps, after thanking Professor Ye for her stimulating study, we should all review the film “The Death of Stalin,” a reality-based comedy that is no laughing matter for students and subjects of the “socialist rule of law” in contemporary China.

Ruiping Ye, Shifting Meanings of Fazhi and China’s Journey toward Socialist Rule of Law , 19 International Journal of Constitutional Law (2021) 1859.

Id . at 1867.

Id . at 1860.

Id . at 1868.

Id . at 1881.

Id . at 1873.

Jerome Alan Cohen , The Criminal Process in the People’s Republic of China, 1949–1963: An Introduction (1968), at 53.

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The WJP is an independent, multidisciplinary organization working to advance the rule of law worldwide.

We engage advocates from across the globe and from multiple work disciplines to advance the rule of law.

The Rule of Law in Pakistan

The rule of law in pakistan  represents the voices of over 4,000 people in pakistan and their experiences with the rule of law in their country. view the report., the rule of law in pakistan: key findings from the 2017 extended general population poll & justice sector survey presents select findings from two world justice project surveys conducted in five urban areas in pakistan between august and december 2017..

The General Population Poll was conducted through face-to-face interviews in 2,010 households distributed proportionally across the five urban areas of Faisalabad, Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, and Quetta. This poll was designed for the WJP Rule of Law Index ® to capture data on the experiences and perceptions of ordinary citizens on various themes related to government accountability, bribery and corruption, crime, and access to justice.

In order to explore justice issues in greater depth, the WJP also conducted a separate Justice Sector Survey of 2,010 households using the same methodology. This survey compiles respondents' views and experiences related to dispute resolution, legal awareness, legal identity, household dynamics, and gender issues.

Whereas the WJP’s flagship Rule of Law Index ® offers aggregate rule of law scores, this report presents disaggregated question-level data as 12 thematic briefs to highlight different facets of the rule of law as it is experienced by the population in Pakistan. These briefs touch upon issues of accountability, corruption, fundamental freedoms, criminal justice, and civil justice, as well as views on women, internally displaced people, and refugees. Together, these briefs give an overview of rule of law and the justice system in Pakistan and can be used to better understand the state of the country as it is manifested in the day-to-day lives of its citizens.

  Key Findings

• Perceptions of Government Accountability: There is a high perception of impunity in Pakistan, though perceptions of government accountability vary across cities. Respondents in Lahore are the most optimistic concerning government accountability while respondents in Quetta are the most pessimistic.
• Corruption Across Institutions: Pakistanis believe that a significant number of authorities are involved in corrupt practices. Police are viewed as the most corrupt authorities by respondents while judges and magistrates are seen as the least corrupt.
• Bribery Victimization: Petty bribery is pervasive in Pakistan. More than half of Pakistanis have paid a bribe to receive assistance from the police and a quarter have paid a bribe to process a government permit. Since 2013, there has been an overall decrease in bribes paid to a police officer, to process a government permit, and to receive medical attention at a public hospital.
• Fundamental Freedoms: Pakistanis have moderate views of political and media freedoms in the country, and quite positive views of religious freedoms. Since 2016, perceptions of political, media, and religious freedoms in the country have improved.
• Crime Victimization: Crime rates in Pakistan vary by type of crime and city. Rates of armed robbery are the highest in Karachi, burglary rates are the highest in Peshawar, and murder rates vary between 1% and 3% across all five cities. On average, there has been a decrease in the rates of all three crimes since 2016.
• Criminal Justice: Incompetence of criminal investigators was cited as the most serious problem facing criminal investigative services in Pakistan, while inadequate resources were cited as their most serious problem facing criminal courts. Perceptions of police corruption and respect for suspects’ rights have improved in recent years.
• Access to Civil Justice: A large majority of those surveyed (82%) experienced a legal problem in the last two years, with problems relating to community and natural resources, consumer disputes, and public services being the most common. Of those, only 14% turned to an authority or third party to adjudicate, mediate, or help resolve the problem. Nearly half reported experiencing a hardship as a result of their legal problem, with stress related illnesses being the most common hardship reported.
• Legal Awareness: Pakistanis have a moderate amount of legal knowledge. The greatest percentage of respondents was able to correctly answer questions related to children’s legal rights.
• Women in Pakistani Society: There are minor differences in men and women’s views regarding the rights of women when it comes to divorce and dispute resolution, but the perception gap grows for questions related to inheritance and household dynamics.
• Internally Displaced People : Views on internally displaced people (IDPs) in Pakistan vary by topic and by city. On average, only half of Pakistanis believe that IDPs are welcome in their community but more than two thirds believe that the government is doing enough to help IDPs. These perceptions are the most positive in Faisalabad and the most negative in Quetta.
• Refugees in Pakistan : Views on refugees in Pakistan also vary by topic and by city. Half of respondents believe that refugees should be guaranteed the same constitutional rights as citizens of Pakistan. When asked about the seriousness of various problems relating to refugees, the largest percentage of respondents said that refugees bringing violence and extremism to Pakistan was a serious problem. Less than half of respondents believe that refugees and citizens are treated equally by the police.
• Trust in Pakistan : Pakistanis have a high degree of trust in fellow citizens. Across institutions, Pakistanis have the most trust in the courts and the least trust in the police, though trust in the police has steadily risen over the last four years.

The Rule of Law in Pakistan 2017 Report

• Download (English)

Introduction & Executive Findings

Thematic Infographics

Project Design & Survey Methodology

Previous Edition: Rule of Law in Pakistan 2016

General population poll (gpp) 2017-2018, world justice project pakistan justice sector survey 2016.

HKU ROLE Project - Rule of Law Essay Competition 2023 ( Deadline is Friday, 24 November 2023! )

Since 2012, the Rule of Law Education (ROLE) Project at The University of Hong Kong has been developing academic materials and other resources to interact with the general public to promote a better understanding of the rule of law in Hong Kong.

To encourage secondary school students to learn actively, think creatively, and to share their thoughts and opinions on the principles of th e rule of law and its significance in society, the ROLE Project is pleased to organise its 5th Rule of Law Essay Competition this year and is now inviting entries from senior secondary school students on the following topic:

Assume that you are a student representative of your school responsible for assisting your teachers in explaining and/or proposing changes to the school rules.  Describe how you could apply the rule of law principles to the school rules.

Eligibility

The Rule of Law Essay Competition 2023 is open to all students who are currently enrolled in either S.4, S.5, or S.6 (or equivalent) in any secondary school in Hong Kong.

Language and Format

Essays may be submitted either in Chinese (word limit: 900 words) or in English (word limit: 800 words); a student can submit ONLY ONE essay (in either English or Chinese).

Assessment Criteria

All essays will be scored anonymously by a panel of judges, who will assess each essay based on its 1) content; 2) structure; 3) writing style; and 4) creativity.

There will be a total of 6 winners, 3 for each language group in the categories below:

Champion:  HK$3,000 and certificate

First runner-up:  HK$2,000 and certificate

Second runner-up:  HK$1,000 and certificate

A number of Certificates of Merit will be awarded to high-quality entries at the discretion of the judges, as appropriate.

I. How to submit:

There are 2 ways to submit an essay:

by email to  [email protected]  with “HKU Rule of Law Essay Competition 2023 ” as subject title; or

by post to Room 0401, 4/F, Cheng Yu Tung Tower, Centennial Campus, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong with “HKU Rule of Law Essay Competition 2023” marked on the envelope.

II. What to submit:

All entries must include: 1) the essay; 2) a completed application form; and 3) a copy of the participant’s student identity card (for the relevant secondary school attended).

The deadline is Friday, 24 November 2023 . Entries to be submitted via email must be received by this date, and entries to be submitted via post must be postmarked no later than this date.

Other Rules and Guidelines

The participant's name should only appear on the application form accompanying the essay. Do not identify yourself (by your name, pseudonym, or school name, etc.) in any part of the essay. Judges will score all essays anonymously.  

Plagiarism and/or impersonation is strictly prohibited.  

All entries must be original work by the entrant, unpublished in any form (including on any websites, blogs, online forums, newspapers, magazines, etc.), and not previously performed or awarded.  

Essays must be written by a single author; co-authored essays are not accepted.  

Use of generative AI is not allowed. Entries will be disqualified if any AI-generated content is identified. We reserve the right to follow up accordingly if any doubts related to AI use arise, and to make relevant judgements on a case-by-case basis.  

Please indicate the number of words at the end of the essay.  

Entrants are not allowed to submit their entries to other competitions before the result of the Rule of Law Essay Competition is announced.  

Once submitted, the essay entry is considered final. We do not allow participants to modify an entry after it has been received.  

Entries via post will not be returned. Please make a copy as necessary before submission.  

Winners of the Rule of Law Essay Competition accept that the copyright of their essays belongs to Faculty of Law, The University of Hong Kong. Written consent must be obtained prior to any republishing or repurposing of the essays.  

The organiser has the discretion to disqualify incomplete entries or those that do not adhere to the above guidelines, copyright, or any other applicable laws or regulations and to reclaim prizes awarded.

The results of the Competition will now be announced on Monday, 4 March 2024  on the ROLE website ( www.role.hku.hk ). Winners will also be informed individually by email.

Please direct additional questions to  [email protected] .

Buxton, Lutz and Bernath take top spots in annual Law Day essay contest

ZANESVILLE − Owen Buxton of Bishop Rosecrans High School won first place in the Muskingum County Bar Association's Law Day essay contest. Graduating seniors from Muskingum County high schools were eligible for the contest.

Buxton received a $1,500 scholarship for his essay. He is the son of Scott and Stephanie Buxton and plans to attend Muskingum University to study history with a minor in political science.

Owen Lutz of Maysville High School won second place and a $1,000 scholarship. The son of Jake and Jackie Lutz, he plans to attend Ohio Dominican University and study business. 

Brendan Bernath of Bishop Rosecrans High School took third place. He received a $500 scholarship and plans to study computer science. He is the son of Ryan and Theresa Bernath and plans to attend the University of Notre Dame.

Law Day is celebrated annually on May 1 and was conceived in 1957. This year's theme. Voices of Democracy, recognized that in democracies, the people rule. For nearly 250 years, Americans have expressed their political views and wishes by speaking their minds and voting in elections. In 2024, the United States will hold its 60th presidential election and Americans will address fundamental questions about democracy and the rule of law.