ABSTRACT
The Rule of Law is a chameleon-like notion. Used by different people it may mean radically different things. As noted in Chapter 1 of this part, an influential commentator on the Left, John Griffith, objects to the notion being used to denote anything more substantive than a set of basic restraints on the powers of the state, particularly its ability to penalise it citizens.2 Griffith complains that, contrary to his prescription, the doctrine is sometimes used in a much wider sense to create loyalty towards the status quo. Professor Joseph Raz notes that, in 1959, the International Congress of Jurists came up with a definition of the Rule of Law which effectively made it a shorthand for ‘a complete social philosophy’, prescribing a full panoply of civil, political, economic and social rights.3
