The 

rule of law is the political philosophy that all citizens and institutions within a country, state,
or community are accountable to the same laws, including lawmakers and leaders. The concept
of the rule of law, or one should rather say some of the principles underpinning the rule of law,
finds its origins in Ancient Greece (between 500 and 300 BCE) where it participated in the ‘self-
definition of the political community of the City’. Edward (2004) states that  during that time of
great political innovation towards Athenian democracy, the rule of law found its expression in
the idea that the law could act as the most efficient and legitimate barrier against the
discriminatory and arbitrary power of the ruler. This essay focuses on analysing the principles of
the ‘Rule of Law’ according to Dicey and explains why it is difficult to maintain the Rule of
Law.

Dicey (1885) said that for the rule of law to prevail, there are three requirements, or three
principles, that must be upheld. The primacy of the law, equality before the law, and the legal
spirit's ascendancy were these.

Edward M. Harris, ‘Antigone the Lawyer, or the Ambiguities of Nomos’ in Edward Harris and Lene Rubinstein
(eds), The Law and Courts in Ancient Greece (2004), p. 19, quoted in Christopher May, ‘The Rule of Law:
Athenian Antecedents to Contemporary Debates’ (2012) 4 Hague Journal on the Rule of Law 235, at 240.