ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 answers the question whether the Athenians had introduced into their Constitution a division of powers into executive, legislative and judicial, like modern states. Another core question is whether the Athenians had reached the rule of law, in response to recent discussions of this topic in the literature. In order to answer this question, the four universal principles on the rule of law, as proposed by the World Justice Project, are used as a guide. The four subsequent subsections discuss of these four principles, namely accountability before the law, protections of core human rights, open government and dispute resolution. I conclude that the Athenian Democracy would comfortably meet all four criteria of the WJP on the rule of law. The remaining subsections discuss some important procedural questions on Athenian law and Athenian public life, like the ability of citizens to block improperly introduced lawsuits, whether the Athenian legal system was truly the domain of amateurs, the presentation and guidelines of evidence in Athenian courts, and some important matters on public life and the administration of the Athenian Democracy, including a brief presentation of its chief magistrates as enforcers of the law.
