July 4th seems an appropriate day to bring up this quip from Cicero. It is approximately 2,000 years old, but its truth is the same today as it was during the time of the Roman Republic. Freedom isn’t anarchy. Some libertarians and anarchists will disagree, but government authority is a requirement for society to enjoy greater freedoms, and the rule of law must prevent the arbitrary enforcement of that authority. These same sentiments were reasserted by Hobbes in his theory of monarchy and government in Leviathan.

In a speech in November 2006 at the Cambridge University, Lord Bingham of Cornhill postulated eight sub-rules of the rule of law:

1. the law must be accessible and so far as possible intelligible, clear and predictable
2. questions of legal right and liability should ordinarily be resolved by application of the law and not the exercise of discretion
3. the laws of the land should apply equally to all, save to the extent that objective differences justify differentiation
4. the law must afford adequate protection of fundamental human rights
5. means must be provided for resolving, without prohibitive cost or inordinate delay, bona fide civil disputes which the parties themselves are unable to resolve
6. 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
7. adjudicative procedures provided by the state should be fair
8. the state must comply with its obligations in international law, the law which whether deriving from treaty or international custom and practice governs the conduct of nations.

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