ABSTRACT
The device by which the founders of liberal constitutionalism had hoped to protect individual liberty was the separation of powers. The idea behind this was that coercion should be permissible only for the enforcement of universal rules of individual conduct sanctioned by the legislature. The basic conception on which the classical distinction between law-making and the issue of particular commands rests is that the lawmaker had to prove his belief in the justice of his pronouncements by committing himself to their universal application to an unknown number of future instances and renouncing the power of modifying their application to particular cases. The rise of the democratic ideal brought it about that it was desired that the representatives of the people should be able to decide not only on the laying down of rules of just conduct but also on the current activities of government in providing services by means of the resources placed at its disposal.
