Liberal State of Law: Legality vs. Rule of Law

Liberal State of Law: Rule of Law and Administration

Rule of Law with Respect to Administration, Jurisdiction, and Citizens

In this concept, the liberal state of law is presented as a legislative rule that states, mainly through the principle of legality, that some authors, like Luis Miguel, believe that evolution has taken this step from the state legislature to the constitutional state. The idea of the state legislature affirmed the principle of legality.

Principle of Legality vs. Rule of Law

The legality principle expresses the idea of law as a supreme legislative measure to which no stronger right can be opposed, whatever its origin or basis. The primacy of the law is, above all, the defeat of the old regime and absolutism. Limiting the absolute state represents an alternative conception to the old regime. The state of law and legal principles involved the reduction of law to the law and the submission to the law of all other sources of law.

In this context, law can be understood by comparing the establishment of the rule of law. Rule of law and the law will have different nuances in continental law versus Anglo-Saxon law. The law establishes the expression of the centralization of political power. When we are talking about the rule of law, independent of how the state was constituted historically, the force of the law was linked to a legislature that was conceived as a power to make a sovereign decision that targeted an ordering function for general society.

In France, we find that the sovereignty of the law rested on the sovereignty of the nation represented by the legislature. Legislative sovereignty was absolute within a set of norms. That legislative sovereignty had to assume regulatory requirements; it had the most power but maximum liability. In the opinion of Zagros, what arises is that the legislature at the continental level marked the culmination of absolutism. To some extent, this shows that it actually represented a step change that is also on the continent, although there are some elements on the continent of such a distinction. Sovereignty is still considered in the modern sense, but not absolute monarchy, rather absolute sovereignty in the law.

Principle of Legality in France, Germany, and Europe

The principle of legality in France, Germany, and throughout Europe generally distanced itself from the first English distinction:

• Both the principles of legality and the Rule of Law developed from different constitutional histories.
• It is agreed that the objectives are the same and also include similar political ideals.

The Rule of Law and the Struggle Against Absolutism

The Rule of Law concerns the establishment of the government of law, a concept raised by Aristotle. This principle also responds well to the struggle that existed in the English Parliament to end the king's absolutism. In contrast, in the European tradition, the rule of law meant replacing the absolute power of the sovereign assembly, which was where sovereignty lay, and its expression was the law.

In England, it was essentially to oppose the pretensions of the king and to protect the freedoms of individuals, that is, the English represented and defended by Parliament. The law in this system is conceived as a constitutive element of the complex legal system of the Common Law. This system arises from the elaboration of a legal or judicial nature, and positive law is a combination of reason, law, history, traditions, and so on.

Parliament's Role in Safeguarding Individual Rights

Parliament, in the context of English history, was conceived as the organ with the fundamental objective of safeguarding the rights of individuals against the absolutism of the king. Parliament had the authority to guarantee freedoms and was also seen as a legal rather than a political activity. This was lacking in the continental conception of parliament, where it was attributed a political power in the form of legislation.

At the origin of the English Parliament in modern times, there was not a jump between the production of rights through the courts and legislative activity. The deep source was not just the law of Parliament; judges were also a source of law.