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Most of this was set out by Dicey in the 19 Century.
Although this is a common law definition its

Dicey’s original concept (he changed his mind later on)
precludes the development of a separate administrative law, which
is designed to control administrative action. He thought that
administrative discretion and administrative law provided special
laws for officials. Later he saw that it was necessary to control the
exercise of official power by special means. Officials exercise
statutory powers and therefore have powers beyond those of
private citizens. One could add that law must be made via proper
law-making process; these days that would include opportunities
for public participation and political debate.

Dicey’s definition was criticised as making no allowance for
the evil law. For example, does the rule of law allow us to punish
someone for acting in accordance with an evil law which was
nonetheless validly made? If not, then the rule of law sanctions
evil laws provided they are applied in accordance with the
principles stated above. Nazi Germany was invoked as an example
of an evil but rule of law based system. Actually this is nonsense.
Hitler’s Germany routinely broke all of the principles stated
above, and it was not a rule of law state in any sense of the term.
This objection therefore looks highly theoretical. What we more
often see is states whose adherence to rule of law is itself
theoretical not practical, or where rule of law is seen as one option
but not binding, or where there are institutions designed to carry
rule of law into effect but they do not work well.

The critique of Dicey leads to a dilemma. If we adopt a ‘thin’
notion of ‘due process’ rule of law, we open the door to bad laws,
provided they are applied through proper process. However, if we
adopt a ‘thick’ conception of rule of law, it may become unwieldy
and subjective, or, as one scholar has put it, ‘a meaningless slogan
devoid of any determinative content’. For example, does the rule
of law imply and include a particular political economy,
international human rights, or substantive fairness? Can we expect

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