What is the rule of the law?

Question

What is the rule of the law?

Answer 1

The first answer (cut and pasted from wikipedia) is a fine description of the rule of law.  Here is another less common source [1].  This author differentiates between the "rule of law" (in which no one is deemed to be above the rule) and the "rule by law" (in which law is simply a tool used by government).  The author quotes F. A. Hayek, rule of law "means that a government in all its actions is bound by rules fixed and announced beforehand -- rules which make it possible to foresee with fair certainty how the authority will use its coercive powers in given circumstances, and to plan one's individual affairs on the basis of this knowledge."

Answer 2

The Rule of Law, in its most basic form, is the principle that no one is above the law. Thomas Paine stated in his pamphlet Common Sense (1776): "For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other."

In England, the issuing of the Magna Carta was a prime example of the "rule of law." The Great Charter forced King John to submit to the law and succeeded in putting limits on feudal fees and duties. Another earlier example was Islamic law and jurisprudence, which recognized the equal subjection of all classes, including caliphs and sultans, to the ordinary law of the land.[1]

Perhaps the most important application of the rule of law is the principle that governmental authority is legitimately exercised only in accordance with written, publicly disclosed laws adopted and enforced in accordance with established procedural steps that are referred to as due process. The principle is intended to be a safeguard against arbitrary governance, whether by a totalitarian leader or by mob rule. Thus, the rule of law is hostile both to dictatorship and to anarchy. Samuel Rutherford was one of the first modern authors to give the principle theoretical foundations, in Lex, Rex (1644), and later Montesquieu in The Spirit of the Laws (1748).

In continental Europe and legal thinking, the rule of law has frequently, but not always, been associated with a Rechtsstaat. According to modern Anglo-American thinking, hallmarks of adherence to the rule of law commonly include a clear separation of powers, legal certainty, the principle of legitimate expectation and equality of all before the law.

The concept is not without controversy, and it has been said that "the phrase 'the Rule of Law' has become meaningless thanks to ideological abuse and general over-use".[2]