A. V Dicey's Concept Of Rule Of Law

Prof. A. V. Dicey elaborated the concept of rule of law in his lectures at the Oxford University which were later published in form of his famous book ‘Introduction to the Study of the Law of Constitution’.

Dicey explained his manifestation of rule of law in three main aspects:

2.1 Supremacy of law

Dicey expressed that no man is punishable or can be lawfully made to suffer in body or goods except for a distinct breach of law established in the ordinary legal manner before the ordinary courts of land. Here, Dicey argued about absolute supremacy and predominance of the regular law as opposed to the influence of arbitrary power or any wide discretionary power. As per him, it excludes the existence of arbitrariness, wide discretionary power and

Here Dicey criticized the French legal system of Droit Administratiff whereby separate administrative tribunals decided the cases between officials of the State and the citizens. According to Dicey, this exemption of the public officials (except monarch) from the jurisdiction of ordinary courts of law and providing them with special tribunals was the negation of equality . Dicey states that there must be equality before law and subjected to the ordinary law of land administered by the ordinary law

Dicey pioneered concept of rule of law in his work Introduction to the Study of the Law of Constitution which was initially published in 1888. Hence, Dicey’s great work was written in the 1880’s at such time when the Lassiez faire Victorian era policy was making way for the beginning of era of Welfare State. Dicey was influenced by the laissez faire policy and the increased powers of administration and the consequent exercise of wide administrative discretion in the welfare state worried him. Apart from this, Dicey also compared the English system with the French Droit Administratiff (separate courts for adjudicating disputes between State officials and the person(s) affected by the State action). He was against the establishment of special administrative courts in addition to the ordinary law courts for determining the rights of individuals as against the