Basic Constitutional Principles Rule of Law

A traffic constable stops your car and demands a fine on the spot. You ask him which rule lets him do that, and he says he is the law on this road. Something in you rebels, because you feel that nobody, however senior, may act without a rule behind him. That feeling has a name: the rule of law. A second feeling sits beside it: the person who makes the rule, the person who applies it and the person who judges a dispute about it should not all be the same. That is separation of powers.

In two minutes

The rule of law means government must act under law and not at will, and separation of powers divides law-making, law-enforcement and adjudication so that no one body can do all three; both are implied in India's Constitution and are part of its basic structure.

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